Karol Markowicz: Too Little, Too Late: Disband the CDC Now

Dissolve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last week, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidance. The agency now believes we should be taking an individual approach to mitigating our COVID risk. In layman’s terms, we are all Florida 2020 now.

The new guidance suggests ending “test to stay” so kids exposed to someone with COVID-19 can remain in school. Of course, this was only related to known exposure. People are exposed to COVID all the time, but only children who were aware of that exposure were punished. Kids lost so much throughout the pandemic because of terrible, irrational CDC guidance like this.

The fresh guidance also says people without symptoms no longer need to be routinely tested.

And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!

But most important, the agency has finally faced some truths about the vaccine that it should have long ago. “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” And it’s admitted that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”

Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated. Many of these people had worked through the early days of the pandemic — and contracted COVID many times over — while we baked banana bread and patted ourselves on the back for ordering from Uber Eats. Now the CDC acknowledges this was the wrong thing to do. Whoopsie!

The new guidance is all fine and good, sane even, but it’s August 2022 and fully absurd that the CDC is only now recognizing that people aren’t staying six feet apart and that a previous COVID-19 infection offers a layer of protection similar to the vaccine.

When COVID first hit our shores, we naturally looked to the CDC for direction. The agency may have previously offered its thoughts on how we should cook our burgers (well-done) and whether we should eat sushi (no), yet it was primarily in the background wagging its fingers at us while we ordered our steak medium-rare (another no-no).

But with COVID, its word became policy. In what should go down as one of the most disgusting moments in public health, the CDC allowed, with direction from the Biden White House, Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers chief, to craft school-opening policies that forced classrooms across the country to remain closed in winter 2021.

No one has been fired for this dereliction of duty. No one has even been openly chastised for allowing a special interest group to control our health care policy. This alone is why the CDC must go.

And then there are the errors. “Well, it was a pandemic, and obviously mistakes would be made” only makes sense if those mistakes are quickly acknowledged and corrected. That hasn’t happened with the CDC.

It took until May 2021 for the agency to recognize that COVID-19 spreads through the air. It continues to push masking despite the fact there is not a single study with a control group showing that masking mandates prevent COVID spread. And not a single real-world example of a country that has managed to control spread through masking. We masked toddlers because the CDC said to. It was egregious. It was damaging.

Then there was the moment in April 2021 when, on a Friday, CDC ​​Director Rochelle Walensky said “pregnant people” should get the COVID vaccine, only to have the agency backtrack on Monday and note pregnant individuals could get the vaccine. 

A health agency that refers to pregnant “people” instead of “women” is one we can’t take seriously anyway, but one that plays with semantics like this during a pandemic is broken and cannot be repaired.

“As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats,” its mission statement touts.

During its 2½ years of dealing with COVID, the CDC has failed to do these things at any level. It has become completely politicized and is now flailing around for relevance updating guidance that never made sense in the first place. It has caused Americans much harm. Disband it now.

Twitter: @Karol

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