August 12, 2022

The CDC just changed its approach to fighting the coronavirus — leaving it to individuals instead of schools, businesses, and other institutions.

WaPo reports.
“I think the question is, is the CDC finally saying, ‘Look, we’ve done what we can do to contain the most acute phases of this pandemic?’” said Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious-diseases expert and clinician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “So are they just finally saying that it is time for us to sort of take a step back and think about putting this back to the individual person?”... 
Social factors and not just virologic ones have shaped the CDC’s approach. The agency’s director, Rochelle Walensky, has said the agency wants to offer practical recommendations that can, and will, be followed by a broad swath of the public. That means taking equity issues into account, because people do not have equal access to tests, or the same ability to work remotely or isolate from family members....

68 comments:

RNB said...

"There they go! And I must run to catch up and get out in front of the mob, for I am their leader!"

RideSpaceMountain said...

The CDC is like the catholic church trying to secularize 350 years after the reformation and the european wars if religion. No one is going to pat you on the back for giving mass in the local vulgar tongue this late in the game.

Ship's sailed.

Kevin said...

Years late and trillions of dollars short.

Leland said...

I think it is becoming more obvious that the CDC isn’t treating monkeypox with anything near the same philosophy as they treated Covid. It is becoming too obvious as they continued to treat Covid like Covid despite it being now widespread and hardly deadly in current variants. So why treat monkeypox differently? We know why, but to hide the truth, the CDC will at least now pretend to treat them the same,

TRISTRAM said...

Twitter just permanently banned the CDC.

Also, an unexpected consequence of the Biden war on fossil fuel: Not enough gas to light this story.

Curious George said...

"That means taking equity issues into account, because people do not have equal access to tests"

I recently had a colonoscopy and was required to get tested for Covid prior to the procedure. I mentioned to the nurse performing the test that I was pretty sure I had COVIN a month earlier because I had 4-5 days of mild fever and body aches. He was blown away that I had not been tested. I asked him what would confirmation via testing do for me? He really didn't have an answer.

Gusty Winds said...

Social factors and not just virologic ones have shaped the CDC’s approach.

Hilarious. The CDC followed the pressure put on it by the Teachers Unions which has done massive harm to the young children in the United States. They also bent to big pharma's want of mandates and approval for mRNA experiments on everyone in the country, including children. They help manipulated data for COVID death classifications. Does anybody even listen to them or trust them?

The CDC is an important government department. But they threw their credibility out the window by following political factors is addition to social ones. While doing this, they kept claiming they were just following the "science".

JAORE said...

"The agency’s director, Rochelle Walensky, has said the agency wants to offer practical recommendations that can, and will, be followed by a broad swath of the public."

"Follow Meeeeee!", She cried, "I'll be up front in just a minute. Excuse me. Make a path. Coming through".

Temujin said...

The CDC is completely lost. Does anybody even still look to them for direction? Does anybody still listen to the CDC?

Does anybody still respect or believe the FBI? Our DoJ? The IRS? The NIH? The Dept. of Energy? Our military leaders? Our Treasury Department? How about the State Department? Your Congressional Representative? Your Senator?

See where I'm going here? Our biggest systemic problem in this country is not racism. It's lack of trust in our institutions. The CDC lost it. And once lost its very hard to get it back. And it takes years to do so.

Washington DC still does not get this.

wendybar said...

So Ron DeSantis was correct all along.

chickelit said...

What will Madison Progressives do? They need direction! They need instructions! They cannot think for themselves!!

Mr Wibble said...

The Dem's internal polling must be absolutely horrific if they're giving up their COVID woobie.

Heartless Aztec said...

It was a three shell monte game with the pea already palmed.

Menahem Globus said...

I remember when I was a kid and the rest of the country caught up to New York after year or two. I never considered the possibility that Florida would assume that role in just a few short decades. Glad I bought a house before we became the New Jerusalem.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Is it "we've done what we can do" or "Yeah, we totally fucked everything up with our response, but we won't admit it'

mezzrow said...

This is going to be tortured, so bear with me...

I envision a scene of someone throwing a towel into a boxing ring, signifying surrender. I then envision the moment after when both fighters are in the ring and the referee is about to raise the glove of the victor.

Just then, a group of black clad individuals with balaclavas rush in from offstage with lead pipes to club the victor and the referee to the floor.

This could go two ways. We await events.

gilbar said...

serious question
was there ANY Good, to ANY Thing the CDC did with this?
If back in 2020; we'd just gone on, and acted like it was the flu, Would total deaths be any higher?

More people died, listening, following. taking CDC rules, regulations, vaccines than died before
I'm not saying, that the CDC made it worse, i'm asking, did they make it Any better?
Come to think of it; i AM asking if the CDC made this worse
Come to think of it; i am asking if the CDC MADE this

Howard said...

Thank God we don't have all of the Trump administration ridiculous rules and regulations over covid. Thank you Joe Biden

Curious George said...

"What will Madison Progressives do?"

The ex-wife of a friend posted on Facebook that she has tested positive for COVID and had determined that her new boyfriend had given it to her and not the other way around. She actually insisted that they both go through contact tracing. She ended the post by saying that "I know it's not his fault, but...."

She lives in Madison, and I'll bet she's not alone in this insanity.

Bob Boyd said...

I would like to see an after action from the CDC on this, an honest assessment identifying their successes and failures on the pandemic response. I have to wonder if they are even capable of such a thing. If they did one, I bet it would be kept secret.

What have they learned? What will they do better next time? It seems like so much of the response was theater and they knew it at the time. Turns out there really wasn't a lot they could do.
Another pandemic is coming, sooner or later. Will we be better prepared? How so?

tim in vermont said...

Went to a party, afterwords one of the guests became ill with mostly digestive tract stuff and severe fatigue; tested positive. A couple days after that, I experienced a sudden runny nose and episode of sneezing, a couple hours later, a painful sore throat, I took a zicam, like I always do when I feel a cold coming on, it tasted like a piece of chalk and I thought “here we go!” Went back to sleep, woke up feeling fine, not even a scratchy throat, taste was normal. I never did do a test because it was over so quickly.

jaydub said...

Does this mean we can hunt down all the mask/social distancing/shutdown/isolation Karens and Nazis, plus the complicit media and cut their hearts out? If not, why not?

Dave Begley said...

These fuckers will never admit they were fucking wrong and totally fucked up the lives of millions of Americans. Fuck them with extreme prejudice.

See post above.

Jefferson's Revenge said...

Never in the history of mankind have so few people been so wrong about so many things that harmed so many people.

And never been held accountable or even had to admit they were wrong.

It's the last part that really pisses me off.

Wilbur said...

Inga hardest hit.

Bob Boyd said...

Progressive Logic: It's so important for the people to have complete faith in their government that we must present to them a false image of the government...even though doing so makes it impossible for the people to have faith in their government.

AlbertAnonymous said...

I believe in Science!

Buckwheathikes said...

Is this the same CDC who told the gays to just put some band-aids on their Monkeypox sores and continue on with their orgies (which I presume includes inviting monkeys in certain locales)?

Like back in the 90s with the San Francisco bathhouses and AIDS?

That CDC?

Or is this some other laughing stock organization of the Federal government?

Fauci needs to get back to punching beagles.

Breezy said...

So, no pandemic excuse for mail-in ballots this year. Good.

Drago said...

The CDC, realizing how most Americans recognize how completely full of "shite" and corrupted the CDC is, how it only exists to enrich its leadership along with its big pharma pals and support democraticals poltical needs (COVID cant be transmitted during wonderful democratical riots!), all the while being a key ally in funding research in ChiCom land....

....and looking around at how the most Americans strongly disagree with the New Soviet Democraticals calling concerned parents of school children terrorists on top of the other utterly corrupted federal govt agencies going Full Stasi after democratical governors purposely killed as many grannies and grampies in nursing homes as they could....


....and noticing that we are getting awfully close to November elections with an economy the New Soviet Democraticals have destroyed and cannot effectively blameshift to others nor redefine their way out of....

....have decided the "science" needs to "change"....at least until just after the Nov elections.

Gee, who didnt see that coming?

Quayle said...

Wait a minute! The sign said “In this home we believe science is real”. Do I now need to get a sign that says “In this home we believe in sociological factors”?

Drago said...

Howard: "Thank God we don't have all of the Trump administration ridiculous rules and regulations over covid. Thank you Joe Biden"

There are many examples from the 30's/40's of Hollywood stars and screenwriters etc "religiously" toeing the Soviet line for years and years, and continuously berating and Mau Mau-ing those around them with the Maoist struggle session tactics and screaming for the US to stay out of "Europe's War", only to wake up on June 22, 1941, and find the official line out of Moscow to be a complete script flip.

And those little Soviet bootlickers did exactly what you knew they would: without the slightest hesitation they reversed years and years of their political positions, on a dime, as if they had never existed.

This sort of mindnumbing reversal, on such a major issue, caused a surprisingly large number of nominal hollywood leftists to recoil in logic-driven horror from the Little Soviets and never return to their ranks.

Now imagine a few New Soviet Democraticals running about on blog pages and pulling these sorts of mind-numbed reversals but not on a "once in a multi-year period" basis, but repeatedly over just months, weeks and days...

....well, one doesn't have to imagine it all when such examples are abound.

rehajm said...

She lives in Madison, and I'll bet she's not alone in this insanity

What about the erosion of basic rules of civilization? This week I had to fly on American Airlines which has added a disclosure to their pre flight. Something along the lines of ‘Masks are a personal decision, respect your fellow passengers, interfering with instructions with ANY member of the flight crew will result in prosecution…’

How many insatiable Karens did incredibly bad policy create? Clearly there’s no cure…

Quayle said...

(By the way, those of us who studied the History and Philosophy of Science already well knew that the entire Scientific Method rests on sociological factors. What is true is science, is whatever the majority of scientists say is true. How that majority is formed, is a complex sociological process not entirely having to do with the raw measured data.)

Jersey Fled said...

"I'm not saying, that the CDC made it worse"

But they did. The school lockdowns that they supported and encouraged have had caused massive harm to our school children that may persist for decades. Then there are the costs in terms of mental and physical health that may be harder to quantify but are nonetheless real.

Ann Althouse said...

I deleted a comment that added extra spaces. Feel free to post again without the spaces. Please avoid doing that. If you see you've done it by accident, you can delete yourself and post again.

rehajm said...

wendybar said...
So Ron DeSantis was correct all along


Somewhere in the Althouse annals there’s a two weeks post with some heated discussion from the pro lockdown hosts vs those of us who saw the consequences as worse than the cure. Credit to the good guys on that one, too…

Lurker21 said...

Sure. Right now, they're too busy shredding documents before the hearings and indictments.

TRISTRAM said...

If there is anything true about science, is that is it NEVER settled. Where y'all went wrong (Covid, Peak Oil, AGW, Top Down Economic Planning ...) is moving from science to ""settled science"" (aka Faith)

Mark said...

The CDC is like the catholic church trying to secularize 350 years after the reformation and the european wars if religion. No one is going to pat you on the back for giving mass in the local vulgar tongue this late in the game.

Actually, the Church never did "secularize" - which means "worldly" - and if it did, it would cease to be the Church.

If you are going to mock something or someone, at least don't show yourself ignorant. Get your words right. I assume that the word you mean is "vernacular," which means to speak in the local tongue. Of course, English itself is made up of a mish-mash of Latin, French, German, some Greek, and more.

Mark said...

Meanwhile, the Democrat D.C. Government is standing in the schoolhouse door preventing 40 percent of the Black kids in the District (who haven't vaxxed) from getting an education.

Joe Smith said...

'That means taking equity issues into account...'

So fucking sick of 'Equity.'

We are ruled by a bunch of crybaby communists.

Joe Smith said...

'Thank God we don't have all of the Trump administration ridiculous rules and regulations over covid.'

When Trump fucked up like he did for much of covid, I called him on it.

Calling a spade a spade as it were.

Liberals have their lips firmly and permanently attached to the public teat...

Drago said...

Althouse: "If you see you've done it by accident, you can delete yourself and post again."

I would strongly recommend only deleting the comment and then reposting.

Scotty, beam me up... said...

“That means taking equity issues into account…”

********************************************************

When are the wokesters running this here establishment gonna realize that Covid is the most woke virus we have ever run into? It is the most equal opportunity infector that the current generation of the world has ever seen (until the next Chinese genetically engineered infectious virus “escapes the lab”) meaning that most people in this country have earned some “equity” by being infected at least once.

I am so turned off by talk of “equity”, I think the libs currently running this country are required to use the word in every sentence whether it fits or not. Not only that, the way they use it is out of context with its definition. What they really want it to mean is “steal from the rich and middle class and give it to the working poor and those that don’t put forth any effort to be productive in society”.

RideSpaceMountain said...

@Mark

If you think for one second Vatican II wasn't secularization, than you don't know the meaning of the word.

There is a direct link to what Vatican II did and what the current Pope is, which is not catholic.

jim5301 said...

Temujin said:

"The CDC is completely lost. Does anybody even still look to them for direction? Does anybody still listen to the CDC?

Does anybody still respect or believe the FBI? Our DoJ? The IRS? The NIH? The Dept. of Energy? Our military leaders? Our Treasury Department? How about the State Department? Your Congressional Representative? Your Senator?

See where I'm going here? Our biggest systemic problem in this country is not racism. It's lack of trust in our institutions. The CDC lost it. And once lost its very hard to get it back. And it takes years to do so."


Actually I don't see where you are going. The problem is with your premise. Tens of millions of Americans, myself included, do respect the institutions you name and do believe they have a positive impact on our lives. Don't assume without evidence that everyone has the same extreme views that you have. The MAGA crowd is a distinct minority in this country. That's why Biden got 7 million more votes than the other guy.

JPS said...

Bob Boyd,

Your comment at 8:04 is spot-on.

I've been hoping for such an AAR since very early in the pandemic. The problem is, too many people have axes to grind at this point, and the drive for institutional protection (see Fauci's statements whitewashing the NIH and NIAID) is too strong.

If it's purely internal matter people will pull punches. If it's released to the public, it'll be the best case they can make that they did it right and no one could have done better given the information available at the time.

If we establish an external commission, the outcome will be controlled a priori by those who select the members.

And then next time, we'll be wondering how we didn't improve.

I regret sounding this cynical. I'd like to be wrong. I don't think I am.

JAORE said...

Meanwhile, the Democrat D.C. Government is standing in the schoolhouse door preventing 40 percent of the Black kids in the District (who haven't vaxxed) from getting an education.

Yep. Governor Wallace was at the doorway facing out.

Randi Weingarten is facing in.

walter said...

Backing into the bushes is better than continuing to herald a corrupted, hazardous product of dubious efficacy.

Sebastian said...

"So are they just finally saying that it is time for us to sort of take a step back and think about putting this back to the individual person?”

After it was clear that WuFlu posed no special problem for most healthy people, it should have been "put back to the individual person" long ago.

Question: did anything the CDC has done these past two years make any positive difference at all?

Drago said...

Sebastian: "Question: did anything the CDC has done these past two years make any positive difference at all?"

Positive for whom?

Michael K said...


Actually I don't see where you are going. The problem is with your premise. Tens of millions of Americans, myself included, do respect the institutions you name and do believe they have a positive impact on our lives.


We know from the inane comments you post. You loved that FBI raid on MAL. You're ecstatic that hundreds of Trump supporters are imprisoned in the Garland Archipelago. You still believe, like Inga, that Putin put Trump in the White House. "Crossfire Hurricane" was a patriotic exercise comparable to breaking the Japanese code in WWII. That last may be a stretch because I doubt you know any history prior to 1968.

Michael K said...

I wonder if the Teachers' Union has any comment on the banning of covid vaccine for anyone under 18 in Europe?

Yancey Ward said...

Well, they are afraid Joe Biden and now Gretchen Whitmer will continuously test positive for COVID over the next several months and have to isolate over and over and over along with their families and staff. So, something had to change at the CDC so that Biden, Whitmer etal. can ignore it without blowback.

Someone above wrote asked would be different if this had been the policy from the start? The answer is pretty much nothing in regards to deaths/cases. It is a respiratory virus with an ever present reservoir of human carriers and probably animal, too- literally people and creatures who always shed the virus. We probably could have saved some lives if we hadn't panicked and intubated so many people at the start, but that mistake is kind of understandable since we didn't know exactly how to treat the illness at the start. After a few months of pretty much every intubated patient dying, the doctors started trying less damaging treatments, and the IFR started dropping rapidly after that.

The people who should be lauded the most for getting it right on policy were people like the governors in states like Georgia, Florida, Texas (after a bit of delay), and Tennessee. I have written it several times- life here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was pretty much back to normal after the end of April 2020. I didn't wear a mask, or was asked to wear one anywhere after that point.

MikeR said...

I was amazed yesterday at this story. They are really still doing this stuff? Pretty everyone I know is done, has been done for six months. Schools, stores, everywhere. Nursing homes and the like are the only places I know that still care.

Joe Smith said...

They've moved on from Covid now that they have Monkey Pox...

Joe Smith said...

Never mind.

--Emily Litella

tim in vermont said...

“Our biggest systemic problem in this country is not racism. It's lack of trustworthiness in our institutions. “ FIFY

n.n said...

Followed the science, not the cargo cult. Next, the babies. One step forward.

Jim at said...

Does anybody still listen to the CDC?

Sadly, yes. Millions of people still listen to them ... when it fits their agenda and can be used to bludgeon people.

Think anybody who was fired for not getting vaxxed will get their jobs back now that the CDC has shown them to be correct all along?

Gretchen said...

I'm not sure what the COVID cultists will do.

Last week a 2x jabbed and double boosted relative and her vaxxed and double boosted husband both came down with COVID even though they always wear masks in public. She commented she was worried because her grandchild wasn't eligible for the booster yet so she could get COVID too. I pointed out the vaccinations, regardless of number did, in no way prevent COVID. She was silent, then said, no I don't think that's right. It's Orwellian. She was the actual embodied evidence that what I said was 100% true. She had more evidence in the next room. I'm sure she considered my comment stupid and uninformed.

Jim at said...

Inga hardest hit.

Not just her, because there were several 'conservatives' on this board who were even worse.

They know who they are. And they'll never admit they were wrong.

Readering said...

Still lots of mask wearing in LA. No biggie. Downtown business district still far from back to normal. That is a biggie.

Jim at said...

The MAGA crowd is a distinct minority in this country.

Keep belittling and dismissing 74 million people. I'm sure it'll turn out well for ya.

n.n said...

The CDC is socially distancing itself from its not so distant stances.

Drago said...

Readering: "Still lots of mask wearing in LA."

Yes, the shopowners all know that.

Probably not the point you thought you were making.

Kirk Parker said...

Mark @9:14am,

So... keeping these kids out of the DC public schools? Sounds like they're doing them a big favor.