Monday, April 4, 2022

"We need a CDC that prioritizes the health of the people, not the health of big business"

"A new omicron variant, referred to as BA 2, is taking hold in the US. Anthony Fauci and others have said they don’t expect a new surge in the US, but BA.2 is causing devastating surges elsewhere, and the policies and behaviors we might use to prevent a surge in the US have been widely abandoned, in part thanks to the CDC’s new system for measuring and conveying COVID risk.

In late February, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unveiled a new COVID-19 monitoring system based on what they call “Community Levels.” By downplaying the importance of Sars-CoV-2 transmission, the new system instantly turned what was a pandemic map still red from Omicron transmission to green – creating the false impression that the pandemic is over.

Released four days before the State of the Union, the new CDC measures and the narrative they created let President Biden claim victory over the virus via sleight of hand: a switch from standard reporting of community transmissions to measures of risk based largely on contentious hospital-based metrics. The previous guidelines called anything over 50 cases per 100,000 people “substantial or high.” Now, they say 200 cases per 100,000 is “low” as long as hospitalizations are also low.

The resulting shift from a red map to a green one reflected no real reduction in transmission risk. It was a resort to rhetoric: an effort to craft a success story that would explain away hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and the continued threat the virus poses. "

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)

"The People’s CDC is a collective of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, educators, advocates and people from all walks of life who care about reducing the harmful impacts of COVID-19. The People’s CDC is volunteer-run and independent of partisan political and corporate interests. 
A copy of the People’s CDC report on the change in the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines can be found at peoplescdc.org."
"We need a CDC that prioritizes the health of the people, not the health of big business"
"We need a CDC that prioritizes the health of the people, not the health of big business"



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