The CDC wants your trust back: It’ll ‘take time to rebuild.’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Mandy Cohen wants to win back America’s trust.
The new CDC director spent her first two months on the job telling audiences in New York, Wisconsin and Washington state the agency has made mistakes, a mea culpa of sorts meant to show that she understands past shortcomings.
“Trust is easily broken and, as folks know, trust takes time to rebuild,” Cohen told POLITICO. “It isn’t something you can fix overnight. I know that this is a long-term way of thinking about it.”
Her trust tour, which has several more stops in the works, comes as the Biden administration begins its latest Covid-19 vaccine push and at a time when her agency faces scrutiny over its decisions and messaging during the pandemic. She is contending with a public that has, for the most part, moved beyond Covid and growing vaccine skepticism fueled by some presidential candidates and public health officials.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Wednesday warned healthy adults under the age of 65 against taking the newly approved Covid-19 vaccine.
Cohen called efforts to undercut vaccine uptake “unfounded and, frankly, dangerous.”
“I want to make sure folks know, particularly in Florida, that vaccination remains a safe way in terms of protecting against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” she said. “It’s important for Americans to get these shots.”
There is reason to believe people are receptive to the administration’s message. More than half of voters are likely to seek out the newest Covid shot, according to new polling conducted by Morning Consult and POLITICO . Nearly eight in 10 Democrats say they will “definitely” or “probably” get the new vaccine, and roughly four in 10 Republicans expect to seek out the updated shot.
Cohen will personally make the case in the coming weeks traveling across the country, including places with high uninsured rates to tout the administration’s Bridge Access Program, which provides Covid-19 vaccines for uninsured people.
Beyond visits to states, Cohen, who became director in July, has met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill — including Republicans who have been critical of the agency — regularly appears in Instagram videos to discuss public health initiatives and is behind an agency overhaul to make data/information more accessible. She wrote an op-ed on Thursday , extolling Covid vaccines and sharing that her husband and two young daughters would soon get the shot.
“A part of trust building is making sure people know I wouldn’t recommend something for the American people I wouldn’t recommend to my own family,” she told POLITICO.
Cohen is following a path that former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who last year ordered an agency overhaul in the wake of criticism over its Covid-19 response.
“I don’t want to say I started the work,” Cohen said. “This is a continuation and acceleration of that work.”
Walensky did not respond to a request for comment.
Reforming how the CDC communicates is a crucial part of the campaign. That includes revamping the agency website to be more consumer friendly, said CDC communications director Kevin Griffis.
“She knows, as a leading health authority, that the public, at times, had their trust challenged,” Paula Tran, a Wisconsin state health official who met with Cohen this summer, told POLITICO.
There’s a new curriculum for CDC scientists that explains how to use clear language, Griffis said, and Cohen regularly meets with CDC employees to talk through concerns and changes in “Meetups with Mandy.”
Cohen led the North Carolina health department during the height of the pandemic and said that leveling with people about what she knew — and didn’t know — helped build trust, a lesson she said she is bringing to the CDC.
She pointed to how the agency discussed the emerging variant BA.2.86, which has gotten weekly scientific updates , and often describes what the agency still doesn’t know about the variant as evidence of this work.
“We are already starting a path [of better scientific communication],” Cohen said.
And as the agency works on its public messaging, Cohen has instructed states to do the same.
At a meeting in Washington state, Cohen told health leaders to prepare clear and consistent messaging on the upcoming respiratory illness season, including how to get Covid-19 vaccines.
“She talked about how we need to be transparent with decision making, and we need to be transparent with our data,” said Tao Kwan-Gett, Washington state’s chief science officer.
For the Wisconsin health department, challenges with the CDC in recent years have centered on getting real-time data to the public, Tran told POLITICO. As the pandemic response became more localized, the department said inconsistencies emerged across school districts, local agencies and counties on Covid guidance.
“We look to the CDC to provide that national coordination around what our major public health priorities are and how we can continue to strengthen public health infrastructure,” Tran said.
After Cohen visited the department in August, Tran said she was “pleased by Doctor Cohen’s collaborative nature and partnership and listening to our colleagues at the very local level.”
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Good luck with that Mandy.
My advice is when you don't know something: JUST SAY WE DON"T KNOW!
Only 40% of Republicans intend to get the new vaccine shot? I think that is amazingly generous of them, because the reduction of the population is bound to make lots more room for the migrants.
Link please.
Did you read the seed you posted? Quoted from your seed:
I think that 40% is another way of indicating "four in 10" is it not?
Oh, you are referring to a poll of those likely to get another shot. That means that 8 of 10 democrats who volunteered for the poll are still dedicated to the experts who lied to them.
That is only a poll of people claiming to be what they claim and claiming to do something in the future.
I'm quite sure that most Republicans followed the BS CDC advice during the pandemic as I did.
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I'm surprised that it's even 40%, because the new vaccine hasn't been scientifically tested.
Moderna ran its trial on only 50 humans.
Further reading:
Mandy Cohen omits the fact that the Pfizer vaccine was tested on 10 mice and no humans:
And ...
Based upon what we now know, it will be a freezing day in hell before I get another Covid shot (I've had the original 2 and 1 booster, and have had Covid). At this point, current Covid variants are similar to the common cold. I also do not trust the CDC, NIH, and NIAID people ... especially Fauci and anyone even remotely connected to him.
You're right to not want the new Pfizer vaccine only tested on mice. It might prevent you from serious symptoms of the virus but it might also make you squeak and grow a tail - a great theme for a new movie.
I'm not worried, I already like cheese.
Joking aside, I do plan on getting the shot. I've had the original two and three boosters since then with no issues. And I've not caught Covid during this entire time.
I was chatting with my doctor the other day and she recommended not getting the shot until October as the efficacy of the shot is short-lived, only really a few months. As I will be having out-of-state friends and family around for the Holidays, I'll get my booster in mid-October. I will agree that the CDC and other government agencies have lost a lot of trust around their handling of this matter, but I've always been a strong believer of immunizations.
My wife and I have had all recommended, thoroughly tested immunizations throughout our lives, and we ensured that our children had them, too. So, we believe in immunizations as you do.
However, Covid vaccines and boosters are only experimentally approved and have not been scientifically, fully tested on humans.
True, not fully tested on humans. But how many injections have been given around the globe so far? Seems to me the problem ratio is small and the biggest impact are to children (which I ain't unless you count emotional age, hehe).
Have you not seen tacos comments on the safety of the vaccine and boosters?????????
So what's your point besides the obvious one that you did not read AND understand my post?
The CDC definitely made some mistakes, especially in the early part of the pandemic. However, recommending the vaccine has not been one of them.
The guy who altered data to make the vaccines appear more dangerous than they really are.
Anti-vax wackjobs would have us all believe that there are piles of dead bodies somewhere as a result of the vaccines. Too bad you never see these bodies.
The fact is these vaccines have been administered to 5.5 Billion people and they have a tremendous safety record. If it were as bad as these lunatics say, we’d have cut the planet’s population by 2/3 already.
And Ladapo was appointed by DeSantis who also is telling everyone under 65 not to get the booster vaccine.
Two complete fricking nut cases, Ladapo and DeSantis as Desantis threatens Fauci.
Anthony Fauci says he still needs a security detail after Ron DeSantis threatened to ‘grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac’
What a fucking scumbag goon thug asshole.
There have been over 12.7 BILLION covid vaccines given world wide. Seems pretty damn safe to me.. Anti-vaxxers are just plain stupid.
terminally stupid...
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that terminal stupidity is just fine with me
Too bad we don’t have a vaccine for that.
But then again, if we did, the just plain stupid people would refuse to take it.
“…the just plain stupid people would refuse to take it…”
If only that were the end all.
Their irresponsible response, based on puerile ideology, endangers all of us. It is inherently inhumane.
But if you have the vaccine you shouldn’t have a problem with those who don’t right?
Exactly, just like the just plain stupid people that let themselves get addicted to alcohol, opioids, gambling, unprotected unmarried sex, ect.
The democrats politicized it and had people fighting over masks. We now know that masks DO NOT PREVENT COVID.
Joe Biden had people lose their jobs over it. He said you couldn't get covid if you got the vaccine.
So again Tacos: WHY LIE ABOUT IT?
the new covid variant will probably take out even more knuckle draggers, just in time for 2024...
Why isn't Biden wearing a mask?
You’re somewhat misrepresenting the situation and what was said. Makes it kind of hard to have a real conversation about it - if that’s what you really want.
If you care about that, there is plenty of blame to go around on this point. Many people in both parties, and all over the news did the world a huge disservice by arguing about petty bullshit when it came to the pandemic.
I don’t know where people get the idea that masks were ever advertised as preventing Covid. The best masks are rated N95, which means they screen 95% of particles of a certain size and type. It has never been 100%. And even then, you only get that level of protection if the mask is fitted and worn properly. The reality is that people absolutely suck at mask wearing.
These caveats were never a secret. The bandana you wear around your chin is useless. So the best masks do not prevent Covid and no sensible person ever thought they did. But they can help a lot.
A study I saw in 2020 showed that a person with no mask could acquire enough virus to get sick in a matter of minutes. For someone with an ordinary mask, it might be an hour or two. For someone with a properly fitted and worn N95 mask, it was something like 25 hours. Not 100%, but pretty damned good.
Yeah, he did say that during a town hall in July of 2021. He’s a moron for saying it. I think it’s a legitimate criticism of our leadership, in general, that they aren’t more careful with their words.
But let’s not pretend that a gaffe 18 months into the pandemic is responsible for all the confusion and political gamesmanship that preceded it. By that time - when the pandemic was already a year and a half old - we should have all known better.
At the same event, he did more accurately say that people are less likely to get sick if they’re vaccinated. He also took a step to repeat that correction in a prepared speech on September 9, 2021, when he said this:
That is not remotely the same as saying you can’t get Covid if you get the vaccine. Not even the vaccine manufacturers or the CDC ever said that. The vaccines were developed on Covid Alpha. That vaccine has been less successful on mutations, like Beta, Delta, and so on. I just don’t know who has been saying otherwise.
Now, as we do every year with the flu, we have new vaccines that better match the dominant mutation. But no one I know of says you can’t get Covid if you’ve been vaccinated. If they do say that, they’re mistaken.
Because the situation is different now.
I'm still lol'ing at that one tacos.
Classic
Cool!
remember all those dying words of regret videos anti-vaxers filmed and all the diehard anti-vaxers in the news that croaked after getting covid? ... oh yeah, LOL, me too!
What kind of person laughs at other people dying of what appears to be a painful death simply because of ideological views? How damaged do you have to be?
darwin award contestants crack me up. especially those duped by republican misinformation...
Nazis and those of their mindset.
thinning the herd of the stupid
Not if you're any good at math or science, no.
Here is the answer:
The COVID pandemic is in the rearview mirror. We have plenty of data about it, including studies telling us how well our countermeasures worked.
A dozen scientists from around the world conducted a massive metastudy of our efforts to fight COVID, as well as similar efforts to fight the flu, and they published the results in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews .
But here’s the most eye-opening finding: “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness/COVID‐19-like illness compared to not wearing masks.” In other words, masks didn't do much — if anything.
A major new study shows that masks don't stop the spread of COVID. Will the mandaters apologize? (msn.com)
Dr Fauci.
Yeah, he did say that during a town hall in July of 2021. He’s a moron for saying it.
Thank you.
That is not remotely the same as saying you can’t get Covid if you get the vaccine.
True, and that is what should have been said at the time.
We are looking back and Biden, Fauci, the CDC and the democrats don't look so honorable. Neither do the people who made it political.
First, this article is from the Washington Examiner and may need to be checked for its interest in it. Second; From the linked article:
Vic, since you posted the information/article, care to elaborate on the above from the link? I will elaborate more once you do so—if you do so.
First, this link is not much of a study. It presents no data, and no analysis because there’s nothing to analyze. It’s all conclusions.
Second, it’s a straw man. Who ever said masks would “stop” the spread of Covid? I don’t remember that and you don’t either, unless it was in a conspiracy fever dream.
What I do remember is scientists telling us we needed to “flatten the curve” of infection, hospitalization, and death by SLOWING the spread of Covid. “Stopping the spread of Covid” with masks was never on the table.
If you really believe masks don’t do any good, go get surgery and tell your doctors they can skip the masks. Same with your dental hygienist, or anyone else who might be breathing on you - or in you - for a while.
Do you sense some disconnect - some cognitive dissonance even - between this notion you’re holding onto that masks do no good and the knowledge that doctors have insisted on using them for over a century?
Unfortunately, when people latch onto a conspiracy, they reject all impulses toward reason, subtlety, context, and nuance. Masks fall short of perfection for multiple reasons that have nothing to do with the mask.
First, people don’t wear them properly. They often aren’t fitted close to the face and people don’t seem to grasp that you actually need to cover breathing orifices.
Second, people didn’t wear them in every situation. Third, they didn’t wear the best masks. For most people, they just wore some cloth or paper thing that didn’t block much at all.
Actual studies dealing in data are out there, and they demonstrate that wearing a good mask properly is highly effective at slowing the spread of Covid and other diseases.
But you can’t - at least not if you’re reasonable - just take a population wearing tiny diapers on their chins and say that masks don’t work. The fault is with the people much more than it is with the mask.
Vic? Before you get an "APOLOGY" - some EXPLAINING is necessary to determine if it is due.
These two transmission methods alone can be the cause of a great amount of sickness/virus/death from Covid-19 in people. And, if the usual suspects for political reasons did not take care to properly cover their mouths and noses with a mask, what are the chances they covered their exposed eyes, or regularly disposed of their disposal masks as required?
Tacos, nobody followed the rules more than I did. I got the vaccine and all the booster shots, I wore the mask if I went out but for the most part I quarantined myself. I get to say that I never got covid.
There is one problem. We all remember that time when the first 10 months involved not having a vaccine and everyone followed the advice of the health experts and the CDC. It was also a time when the entire thing became very political. After we got a vaccine, which was developed well before Dr Fauci said it was possible, we had already seen a shutdown of the economy recommended by Dr Fauci.
On the mask wearing:
Fauci has been accused by critics of changing his position on mask-wearing. In the early days of the pandemic, he advised people not to wear masks. In an email obtained by Buzzfeed News, he told Sylvia Burwell, former health and human services secretary, on February 5, 2020: "Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.
"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you."
On March 8, 2020, Fauci said "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask," according to Reuters. He later said that he was worried about health care workers not having enough protective equipment.
On April 3, 2020, the CDC updated its guidance to advise people to wear face coverings "in public settings when around people outside their household, especially when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain."
Fauci Defends Masks as Mandates Return (newsweek.com)
And don't tell us you don't remember all the fights and virtue signaling the country went though over masks.
On the shutdown:
Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease specialist, said he advised the president to "shut the country down" in the earlier stages of the pandemic. He said this was the most significant decision he has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic during a virtual Q&A session hosted by the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts on Tuesday.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, was responding to a question from one student regarding his most crucial decision of the pandemic.
"It was a decision to make a recommendation to the president," Fauci said. "It wasn't my decision that I could implement."
Fauci Says He Told Trump to 'Shut the Country Down' (newsweek.com)
So let us not pretend that didn't happen.
Then Biden took over.
The Mandates:
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday issued two executive orders mandating vaccines for federal workers and contractors and announced new requirements for large employers and health care providers that he said would affect around 100 million workers, more than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.
"We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin," Biden said, making a direct appeal to the 80 million people who he said were still unvaccinated. "Your refusal has cost all of us."
Biden also announced that he asked the Department of Labor to issue an emergency rule requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any unvaccinated workers to produce a negative Covid test at least once a week. The requirement could carry a $14,000 fine per violation and would affect two-thirds of the country's workforce, a senior administration official said.
Employees working in health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement will also be required to be vaccinated, Biden said, a move that will impact 7 million workers at 50,000 health care providers.
As of July, 27 percent of the country's health care workers were unvaccinated , according to a study by the Covid States Project.
"It's simple: If you want to work for the federal government, you must be vaccinated. If you want to do business with the government, you must vaccinate your workforce," the official said.
Biden announces sweeping vaccine mandates affecting millions of workers (nbcnews.com)
Thousands lost their jobs including military personnel. Was that decision based on science. And then there were the vaccines for young children who were practically immune from the disease. One thing we learned about the strange virus was that it was a killer for the elderly, but not so much for the young.
Now we get to look back and find that they knew little more than the rest of us:
The Walensky apology:
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is getting credit for a mea culpa for saying what seems obvious: “For 75 years, the CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,”
This is a classic act of contrition theater, in which Walensky avoids taking any responsibility for the agency’s failure to understand the threat the nation faced or the CDC’s unfounded “guidance” regarding how to slow the spread of COVID, measures that the agency now acknowledges are flawed.
It is not a small issue that CDC personnel undermined respected scientists outside of government who quarreled with mask mandates, social distancing, shutting schools, closing businesses, and promoting universal vaccination with serums whose known risks to some were downplayed. All this while dismissing Americans who doubted that the CDC had a monopoly on “the science.”
In truth, the CDC did a great deal of damage to public faith in science and enormous damage to public trust in government writ large. The more consequential cost, of course, is what epidemiologists know as excess death — those whose lives were lost following government guidance on how to save their lives.
Walensky’s apology came as a prelude to the release of an internal review of the CDC’s management that she ordered in April in response to growing criticism including the threat of a congressionally mandated investigating commission.
For the review, she turned to someone she characterized as an “ outside ” senior federal official, James Macrae, a 30-year veteran of the Department of Health and Human Services bureaucracy. Incredibly, the other members of the four-person review were Walensky’s three deputy administrators. Their remit was a comprehensive evaluation of the agency’s “structure, systems and processes,” all to be done in four weeks.
With no private sector input, the report appears very much a product of Washington — interesting findings that will hold off critics but are unlikely to regenerate trust in the agency. For instance, the report finds that CDC scientists are too focused on producing papers for peer-reviewed journals rather than practical research. In the future, Dr. Walensky says , CDC researchers will be evaluated on whether they “produce data for action,” not “data for publication.”
Not surprisingly, Walensky’s review finds the CDC underfunded, the excuse for its remarkable inability to ever provide a real-time statistical profile of the pandemic. (The agency cannot yet tell with certainty current COVID-related rates of infection, hospitalization or death.) Yet, Congress has appropriated huge sums for “data modernization” since 2012. In the last three budgets alone, the CDC has received $1.4 billion to improve its information systems and create a forecasting competency.
Oddly, Walensky has insisted that the idea for the review was her own and not the White House’s. Perhaps she realizes that some of the erosion in public trust involves her readiness to do dirty work for the president. It took the Supreme Court to tell the CDC it could not suspend evictions to enforce quarantines. And it was Walensky who took suggestions from the head of a national teachers’ union when developing guidance on school closings. Shutting schools increased the incidence of childhood mental illness and unnecessarily disrupted family life throughout the country.
The CDC is broken and apologies can’t fix it | The Hill
You are too smart to not know all that. I shouldn't have to dig all that up.
They knew little about covid and they improvised a lot of stuff as they went along. Worst of all they plaid politics and censored other medical professionals who disagreed with them.
Would be pretty stupid to get a booster or shot when there has been distributed without results from human trials.
There is no data to show what this vaccine / booster can do to the human body but people are still dumb enough to get the shots. One would think there would be something for a virus that has been known since the 1960's.
The data is that they administered over 12 Billion shots to over 5 Billion people. You couldn’t ask for a better trial. The only difference in the current shot is the specific mutation being targeted. We make that kind of modification every year with the flu shot.
With over 50 years to do it, they still don't have any data? I'd call that an absolute failure.
So we are told. Again, there is no data from human trials.
They do have data. Those 5.5 Billion people I referenced. They’re not dead. They not crippled. They’re not having deformed babies. It’s fine. That’s the data.
And of course they ran much smaller trials on humans in 2020, so when you say there are no trials and no data, I don’t understand what you mean. When you just change the variant being targeted, there is generally no need to retest the underlying technology.
From your own link:
But I don’t know; maybe you know more than the infectious disease specialist. The only skepticism from the experts in your story seems to be related to efficacy, not safety.
The CDC lied about the vaccine. Anyone who doesn't understand that's a problem Is terminally stupid. The damage public health officials have done to their field over covid "politically correct protests are okay, others kill people" will take decades to recover from. You can't trust politicized liars and people will remember.
What are you referring to?
That vaccinated people didn’t carry or spread the disease.
You mean like:
The science was then and IS now in flux. But, continue on with the MAGA 'mission' to nuh-huh and negative 'Nancy' everything the CDC does. Who knows? One day we may be trusting in MAGA to keep us safe from pervasive medical nightmares, then we will be safe, eh? /s
As I said in 4.3. There have been no human trials for a disease that was first noted in 1965. The science isn't "in flux". It hasn't started.
I don't see you with any thing disproving my links. You also don't seem to be able to dispute my link in 5.1.2. Come back when you have something more than flapping lips and talking points.
That’s a good example of sloppy messaging. This comment is on point:
Like I’ve pointed out elsewhere, even the companies that make the vaccines never claimed they were 100% efficacious, so it’s ridiculous to expect or claim that they were. Nevertheless, the advantages in getting the vaccine were so substantial that the enthusiasm for them was (and remains) warranted.
And while I am critical of the sloppy messaging, I think it’s disingenuous at best - and entirely political - to act like this slight exaggeration of the vaccine’s effectiveness was actually very important for anyone.
I really don’t think there are legions of people (much less one) out there who got the vaccine because they thought after watching the Rachel Maddow show that the vaccine was perfect, but they wouldn’t have gotten the vaccine if they knew it was only 90-something% effective.
I won't remark on MAGA 'doggedness' to nay-say if you don't go there with me about "flapping lips" and as for talking points I did not need it. It's all me on this issue !
Moving on.
As to your NBC News link: (bottom of the page)
Of course, MAGA goes with its experts, though one would be wise to question the motivations of them all.
Let's cut the crap.
Consequently, MAGA's argument is we should continue to wait around for PERFECTION (usually non-achievable in this world order) and let people die UNREASONABLY. A fatally-flawed position to hold.
T he NBC News article and the USA article both point out that modified vaccines for seasonal flu strains are not given clinical human trials. . . and the MNRA method was catalogued and awaiting USAGE when this case came along.;
Of course, MAGA wants to WIN the argument; lives are secondary to winning - if one can live with that!
Jeremy, the OBVIOUS question would be why persist in holding OLD UNUPDATED information in a chest pocket to harass scientists with on those occasions where any number or any one individual professional may state the CURRENT scientific position (subject to updating at the earliest convenience) or even make misstatement!
Reason would properly indicate that our knowledge and understanding of viral diseases, especially NOVEL viruses (this specific brand is relative NEW/Novel ).
What you present here is tantamount to someone standing back in 2021 yet producing its data in 2023 as if nothing new has been stated by scientists and specifically Dr. Walensky.
Why persist in such 'annoyance'?
Why not get with CURRENT understanding and save US the grieve of reading what science has passed on as outdate and now known to be inaccurate?
If it is not clear to you, then yes, I question you motives for pulling that article in the present.
MAGA extends grace to whomsoever it will. Clearly, in 2023 that does not include the CDC or Dr. Walensky!
Read the link in 5.1.2
Why ignore the comment was made in the first place? Oh, that's right. Could it be because it's not what you want to hear. Well, suck to be you. I really don't care. The comment was made and it was made about a virus that has been known to the CDC for 50 years.
I ignored nothing. The comment or something similar was made and actually I remember her making it. But, I am not unforgiving of a scientist/medical professional/practitioner trying to get information out to the public about a NOVEL virus and an ever-changing set of facts.
MAGA seems to want to make the ENTIRETY of Dr. Walensky's rhetoric boil down to a single sound-bite that showcases a blunder or at the least information that could not stand up for long.
Jeremy, there is no grace in that. You extend GRACE to your fellow conservatives. Why not to the doctor.
Here is Dr. Walensky getting it right: Let's see if you credit her for having the gumption to self-correct (a thing which scientists do all the time when facts turn in a new direction) :
You acknowledge they lied. So what are you blathering about? You acknowledge they lied.
You are the one using the word, lie. Where is the GRACE you so regularly extend to your friends in the party? Surely, you are aware that a person can misspeak or even get it facts in flus in error: Grace allows a speaker multiple opportunities to SELF-CORRECT.
People who are liars don't bother with voluntary self-correction. MAGA knows someone like that who will defend a mountain of lies strung together indefinitely!
You CHOOSE to pretend she has not CORRECTED the record once new data became/becomes available. What does that make you?
And your use of the word, "blathering" when I am talking to you without rancor speaks volumes.
So, how many people do you think were improperly influenced to get vaccinated?
how many people lost their jobs/access to family because they were being "selfish" and not vaccinated, even though vaccination did not prevent them from being carriers/spreading disease?
People were penalized, informally and formally, on the false premise that vaccinations prevented Covid from being spread.
Noble lies are still lies, and every time the CDC pushed false information (masks don't work, Yes they do!) or sat back as the government pushed nonsense (some demonstrations are safe, some are murder based solely on the messaging) or manipulated media to spread misinformation for political purposes (covid origin) undercuts any rational person's confidence that the liar is speaking truth . Heard of the boy who cried wolf?
That's ridiculously harsh! I was not aware MAGA had a perfection obsession with hard-working professionals striving to millions more alive than died worldwide from this novel virus. Where is grace in your worldview, as it appears absent from this!
Tell us. While you’re at it, see if you can formulate strategies and tactics that would have made sense to you back in 2020 when this was all new to everyone. I have seen so much criticism - most of it political and from both sides - since this all began, and with zero respect for the fact that this was a brand new disease.
Why it would “prevent” it? If the vaccine is not 100% effective, why would you expect 100% prevention of transmission? Use your common sense. Vaccines for any disease do help reduce transmission.
From early in the availability of vaccines:
They should have started by not disseminating information they weren't very sure was true .... you know... like "C19 is spread by spittle", "it's not airborne", or "you don't need a mask".
Continue with accurate statements about the very real but also very limited efficacy of masks, and set examples by wearing masks themselves... even to posh parties of political elites.
Continue into 2021 with "if you are vaccinated, then the statistics are very clear that you have nothing to fear from unvaccinated people".
Being wrong frequently is as damaging to credibility as lying.
The result of that, though, boils down to "take zero precautions." If you're responsible for trying to reduce the number of infections and deaths, wouldn't you put your best guess out there? Or would you remain silent on the chance that it might be inaccurate advice?
I don't understand why something that was clearly a respiratory infection was not assumed to be airborne, but then I'm not an expert. I can respect, though, that they were trying. In the end, keeping our distance and obsessively hand-washing may not have been the best strategy, but it's not like people are going to die from standing six feet away instead of three.
Why do you think it was new to everyone?
The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.
Respiratory viruses can be attached to droplets that spew out into the air and onto surfces surfaces too, to my understanding. Thus, the CONTINUED need to watch handshaking and regular hand washings. And don't get me started with. . . horrors. . . kisses and sleeping together in the same bed with an infected partner. Blah!
Snotty nose children coming up in three, two, one. . . winter - Ugh.
Greg, this virus, this NOVEL virus, was a first of its kind to cross over into humans and cause a pandemic:
Of course it doesn't.
Any time you are attempting to manage a crisis, people need to be able to trust what you say. You can't be that wrong that often without losing your ability to influence the situation.
This is the point. You're not an expert (nor am I), but even we realized the thing was airborne. Most people realized a bunch of things the CDC was telling us didn't seem to make sense.
But in our politically polarized climate, the two tribes reverted to their base nature, with the left demanding everybody follow every CDC instruction no matter how silly and the right refusing to follow any no matter how rational. In that environment, the CDC needed to say less and be more certain.
Gov Cuomo was trying. He still killed thousands of old people acting on his "best guess".
Keeping our distance was absolutely the best strategy they suggested. But it got lost in all the other ineffective ones.
The first case happened in 2019. Hence the name, “Covid-19.” The viruses that cause SARS, MERS, and Covid are in the same family (Coronavirus), but they are different viruses.
This article explains some of the differences.
Covid is the only one that developed into a global pandemic - and rather quickly, at that. It is more contagious than the others and infected more people without immediate symptoms. That is, it’s more sneaky.
So very early in, it was hard to track. It wasn’t always obvious who was infected and contagious. Just the general dynamics of how the disease progressed were mysterious.
Yeah, I think that’s an important clarification. Somebody out there will get the idea that as soon as you say it’s airborne, then it can’t be in a droplet. It spreads most readily via aerosols, but like many other viruses, it can exist in droplets and on surfaces.
There is a difference between lying and just being wrong.
I just ignore all the drama about the CDC and take the advice of my doctor. I've had Covid, the two initial shots, and three boosters including the Omicron update. I've been getting shots since childhood, had no choice when I joined the USAF, and flu shots as far back as I can remember. I don't believe that every updated version of the original vaccine requires trials, it would take too much time.
The scientific consensus seems to be that the vaccine reduces the severity and duration of the infection, not that it prevents it. Unsupported stories of side effects have been put forth by the anti-vaxxers without rigorous proofs.
Considering my age and moderate COPD, I will take the advice of my doctor and will get the latest updated Covid shot along with the flu shot in next week or two. He also recommends that I get the RSV vaccine. For good measure, I also got the updated pneumonia shot (Pneumovax 23) earlier this year
COPD is not a joke and so I am glad you are not kidding around with it and following constructive medical advice! Thank you, Greg for your forthrightness to speak to the heart of the matter. It might help someone (here) who needs to read this conservative perspective! Big props on your life situation.
I plan the RSV vaccination soon. I recently got my 5th covid shot in entirety and may not qualify(?) to get the six vaccination of the newest strand (per se) because of the closeness of the timeframes. I will see how I am to proceed after revisiting the situation with my doctor.
I’m an old soldier and used to many vaccines. I’ve had all the COVID shot’s except for the new one this Fall. I’ll get it next weekend. Last weekend I got my second Shingles vaccination and in Oct I’ll get RSV and pneumonia. The vaccines didn’t protect my wife who got COVID in April or I in June but our symptoms were relatively mild and only lasted a few days.
I don’t really understand how this has become a political issue.
As far as I can tell, it is 'impossible" to know from whom EXACTLY COVID-19 is received, once caught. Because people the variables are EXTREME in society. And many people trying to be cool or indifference are flaky in how they manage their mask 'equipment.' And don't get me started on the 'rituals' of home life where one's guard is usually 'down' and subpar.
It became a political issue because MAGA felt it had no choice in an election year but to turn on the liberals who were masking up in droves, and worried about it all. Overall, MAGA 'fatally' true to form. . . took the counternarrative points of view.
For some people, everything is a political issue.