In praise of COVID.gov, Lord of the Game Changers!!! -- Revised assessment 4/6/22

Last update: Wednesday 4/6/22 

President Biden issued the following tweet on Wednesday 3/30/22: "Today, I announced a one-stop to get any and everything you need to deal with COVID ... Go to COVID.gov ... All the information is there." @POTUS

"COVID proved the CDC is broken. Can it be fixed?"

Last update: Wednesday 3/30/22 

In June 2021, the NY Times published a powerful op ed by Jeneen Interlandi that everyone must skim (for at least five minutes), but some should read every word. It's a "TLDR" for most folks ("Too long; didn't read"), but its core message must be grasped by anyone who wants to understand why the U.S. continues to botch its handling of the pandemic so badly.

Old movies about boosters, science, and judgement calls ... with a 2nd P.S.

Last update: Sunday 4/3/22 

The challenge posed by the sudden emergence of the Delta variant in the summer of 2021 was met by the Biden administration's full-throated call for booster shots for everyone. Unfortunately, the administration announced this objective before the advisory committees of the FDA and the CDC had determined that this change in policy was justified by the science. Indeed, two high level experts at the FDA resigned in protest.

... And this year's winner of the title "Nation's Leading Agency in the Management of the COVID Pandemic" goes to ....

Last update: Tuesday 3/22/22

May I have the envelope, please ... Yes ... Yes ... The winner this year is ... once again: NOT the CDC!!! 

Strategic implications of some basic facts about the CDC

Last update: Saturday 3/19/22 

This note is an attempt by the editor of this blog to answer some of the questions that most health conscious residents of the U.S. have had about the CDC, but didn't have the time to go searching around the CDC's Website to find the answers ever since the pandemic began in early 2020. As readers will discover, there's a lot more to the CDC than they might have suspected, but a lot less than what they might think is really needed for it to be the lead agency in our efforts to manage the coronavirus pandemic.

Resuming responsibility for our own healthcare with help from COVID.gov ... Revised 4/7/22

Last update: Thursday 4/7/22 

Returning to normal living ultimately means that each of us will resume responsibility for our own healthcare. President Biden's COVID.gov initiative, recently enhanced with a vital "Test to Treat" option, will make it much easier for each of us to become our most important healthcare giver once again. 

Putting six million lives lost to Covid into perspective

Last update: Wednesday 3/9/22 

On March 7, 2022 the NY Times reported that Johns Hopkins University estimated that the worldwide total of Covid deaths had reached six million persons. Adolescents might be discouraged by their certainty that this was the worst viral catastrophe in their brief lifetimes; but intelligent adults might take grim comfort in their vague recollection of being told when they themselves were youngsters about the so-called "Spanish flu" that demolished the lives of a far greater number of people back in 1918.  With the help of highly effective vaccines, highly protective N95 masks, and highly effective antiviral meds, none of which existed back in 1918, most of us, the vast majority, everywhere, will survive our current lesser catastrophe and soon get back to living normal lives ... but only if we demand better guidance from our pandemic managers. 

The CDC's latest mask guidance, much better, but still not good enough

Last update: Sunday 3/6/22 

This blog note is the third part of a two-part series, meaning:  the blog's editor planned two parts, but a few days after he posted the second part his growing misgivings about the CDC's February 2022 guidance compelled him to add this "final" note to the series. The CDC's guidance to U.S. counties was based on their local hospital resources. As such, it was a giant step beyond the CDC's usual "one size fits all" recommendations. Unfortunately the guidance didn't go far enough. This note addresses two shortfalls.

When will we return to normal living? With a few critical improvements on President Biden's COVID.gov page, we're almost there

Last update: Sunday 4/10/22 

Maybe our communities are on the verge of returning to normal living via  background immunity plus  tests and antiviral medications easily accessed via COVID.gov

Rationale for the CDC's new guidance for masks

Last update: Thursday 3/13/22 

Before the development of highly successful vaccines in late 2020, our pandemic management efforts sought to reduce the speed with which the coronavirus spread throughout our communities, our goal being to prevent severe illness from overwhelming our health care systems. In September 2020, the CDC measured community transmission of the virus by a combination of two metrics: (1) total new cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days, and (2) the percentage of coronavirus test results that were positive during the previous 7 days.