Downgrading the CDC's guidance

 Last Update: Saturday 7/25/21

The CDC continues to exacerbate confusion in the final phases of the pandemic. For example, in March 2021, two months into the Biden administration's intensive campaign to administer one to three million vaccine doses every day, the director of the CDC, a Biden appointee, proclaimed that she feared that our nation faced "impending doom" ... whereas common sense anticipated a decline in infections and a precipitous drop in COVID-related deaths given that rigorous double blind clinical trials had shown the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were 95 percent effective in preventing infections and almost 100 percent effective in preventing deaths

The good news, of course, is that common sense was correct.

• "CDC director warns of 'impending doom' as Covid-19 cases spike in most states", Christina Maxouris and Holly Yan, CNN, 3/29/21
  
  
• "How the United States Beat the Variants, for Now", Carl Zimmer and Apoorva Mandavilli, NY Times, 5/14/21

The better news is that the reluctance of other pandemic experts to directly criticize the CDC while President Trump was in office is fast disappearing under President Biden. About six weeks after her failed prophecy of '"impending doom" the CDC director stunned most experts by suddenly proclaiming that the vaccinated residents of every state did not have to wear masks or maintain social distancing anymore. This head spinning reversal was roundly challenged by experts.

• "Vaccinated Americans May Go Without Masks in Most Places, Federal Officials Say", Roni Caryn Rabin, Apoorva Mandavilli and Noah Weiland, NY Times, 5/13/21
• "723 Epidemiologists on When and How the U.S. Can Fully Return to Normal", Claire Cain Miller, Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz, NY Times, 5/15/21

Nevertheless, some public officials, e.g., the governor of California, were so encouraged by the CDC's new guidelines that they discarded masks and some other restrictions for their states.

• "California’s vaccinated residents can go mostly mask-free as of June 15.", Jill Cowan, NY Times, 6/9/21

The CDC's misguided guidelines were based on the percentage of the entire U.S. population that had been vaccinated, a misleading national statistic that belied the fact that the percentage of vaccinated residents varied widely from state to state, and within states from county to county, town to town, or even neighborhood to neighborhood. The most harmful policy decisions are likely to occur with regards to "hot spots", e.g., low vaccination, high population areas within high vaccination regions.  Los Angeles County in California is a prime example

• According to the CDC, as of 7/16/21 the percentage of the 5.6 million Los Angeles County adults who had received at least one shot was 72%, i.e., about 4.0 million so the percentage who had received no vaccinations was 28%, i.e., about 1.6 million people, disproportionately found in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

After the inevitable surge in delta variant cases in the low vaccination, high population neighborhoods, Los Angeles County reimposed its mandate for masks:

• "Wary and Weary, Los Angeles Largely Accepts Restored Mask Mandate", Matt Craig and Livia Albeck-Ripka, NY Times, 7/21/21

Downgrading the CDC's guidance

Enough is enough. As has been pointed out in many notes on this blog, the CDC has not been up to the challenge of providing clear, consistent, timely guidance for coping with the COVID pandemic in our fifty states and territories throughout 2020 and now halfway into 2021.

• C.D.C. Labs Were Contaminated, Delaying Coronavirus Testing, Officials Say", Sheila Kaplan, NY Times, Sunday 4/19/20 
  
  
• How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’", Alexis C. Madrigal and Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 5/21/20
  
  
• "The CDC Waited 'Its Entire Existence for this Moment.' What Went Wrong", Eric Lipton, Abby Goodnough, Michael D. Shear, Megan Twohey, Apoorva Mandavilli, Sheri Fink and Mark Walker, NY Times, 6/3/20
  
  
• "COVID proved the CDC is broken. Can it be fixed?", Jeneen Interland, NY Times, 6/16/21
  

As the nation's CEO, President Trump should have reorganized the CDC from top to bottom; his failure to do so transferred this duty to President Biden. Until President Biden addresses the CDC's deficiencies, no one should take the CDC's recommendations as either the final nor the most important guidance on any important issue related to the pandemic, no one -- not governors, not mayors, not corporate executives, not ordinary citizens. No one.

At this point in time, some of us have been vaccinated, but many of us have not. Some of us are fortunate enough to live in high vaccination regions, but many of us live in low vaccination regions, while others live in hot spots within high vaccination regions. Accordingly, the final and most important guidance should come from local experts who are aware of the unique conditions in our states, counties, and neighborhoods. One size does not fit all, neither does one guidance. 

_________________________________

Related notes on this blog:

• "Is the Delta variant making masks less effective, but more significant?", Last update: 7/15/21
  
  
• "The pandemic is almost over according to our major media, but for whom?", Last update: 7/16/21
  
  
• "An open letter to President Biden regarding the critical need to reorganize the CDC immediately", Last update: 6/17/21