Tag: Center for Disease Control

CDC says fully vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks indoors

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The CDC announced in new guidance Thursday that anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, regardless of crowd size.

What they’re saying: “If you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will say at a White House press briefing.

Caveats: The guidance does not apply to those traveling on planes or public transit, health care settings, correctional facilities or homeless shelters. Continue reading.

After Worst Year for Gun Violence in Decades, Phillips Demands Status Report on Gun Violence Research

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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) sent a letter to the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) demanding a status report on the progress of taxpayer-funded research on gun violence, as well as an estimate for when that research will yield actionable recommendations for policymakers. Phillips’s letter comes after the recent tragic shootings in Colorado and Georgia along with House passage of bipartisan legislation to strengthen background checks and keep communities safe.

Phillips also recently co-sponsored the Gun Violence Prevention Research Act, which authorizes $250 million in funding to the CDC to study gun violence over the next five years. In 2018, Congress authorized $50 million to fund gun violence research at the CDC and NIH, but experts say that additional funding is sorely needed to complete that research and identify life-saving solutions to America’s gun violence epidemic.

Continue reading “After Worst Year for Gun Violence in Decades, Phillips Demands Status Report on Gun Violence Research”

Judge rules CDC eviction moratorium unconstitutional

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A federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday that an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) temporarily halting evictions amid the pandemic is unconstitutional.

In a 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge John Barker sided with a group of landlords and property managers who alleged in a lawsuit that the CDC’s eviction moratorium exceeded the federal government’s constitutional authority.

“Although the COVID-19 pandemic persists, so does the Constitution,” Barker, a Trump appointee, wrote. Continue reading.

We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has.

Washington Post logoThe administration is undermining public health

As America begins the formidable task of getting our kids back to school and all of us back to work safely amid a pandemic that is only getting worse, public health experts face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the debate last week around reopening schools more safely showed, these repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.

As of this date, the CDC guidelines, which were designed to protect children, teachers, school staffers and their families — no matter the state and no matter the politics — have not been altered. It is not unusual for CDC guidelines to be changed or amended during a clearance process that moves through multiple agencies and the White House. But it is extraordinary for guidelines to be undermined after their release. Through last week, and into Monday, the administration continued to cast public doubt on the agency’s recommendations and role in informing and guiding the nation’s pandemic response. On Sunday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos characterized the CDC guidelines as an impediment to reopening schools quickly rather than what they are: the path to doing so safely. The only valid reason to change released guidelines is new information and new science — not politics.

One of the many contributions the CDC provides our country is sound public health guidance that states and communities can adapt to their local context — expertise even more essential during a pandemic, when uncertainty is the norm. The four of us led the CDC over a period of more than 15 years, spanning Republican and Democratic administrations alike. We cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence. Continue reading.

CDC chief defends failure to spot early coronavirus spread in U.S.

Washington Post logoRobert R. Redfield says diagnostic testing would have made little difference, describing it like ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday defended the agency’s failure to find early spread of the coronavirus in the United States, noting that surveillance systems “kept eyes” on the disease.

“We were never really blind when it came to surveillance” for covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, CDC chief Robert R. Redfield said. Even if widespread diagnostic testing had been in place, it would have been like “looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said.

Redfield was among three CDC officials who spoke with reporters Friday about a comprehensive analysis by the agency that found the coronavirus began spreading in the United States as early as the second half of January, eluding detection by public health surveillance systems that help monitor for early signs of novel contagions. Continue reading.

CDC, FEMA have created a plan to reopen America. Here’s what it says.

Washington Post logoDocument is part of White House plan being drafted to allow Trump to reopen parts of the country within weeks

A team of government officials — led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — has created a public health strategy to combat the novel coronavirus and reopen parts of the country.

Their strategy, obtained by The Washington Post, is part of a larger White House effort to draft a national plan to get Americans out of their homes and back to work. It gives guidance to state and local governments on how they can ease mitigation efforts, moving from drastic restrictions such as stay-at-home orders in a phased way to support a safe reopening.

CDC and FEMA officials have worked on the public health response for at least the past week, and the resulting document has been discussed at the White House, including by members of the coronavirus task force, according to two administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

CDC, the top U.S. public health agency, is sidelined during coronavirus pandemic

Washington Post logoAs the United States enters a critical phase in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s leading public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appears to be on the sidelines, with its messages increasingly disrupted or overtaken by the White House.

Neither CDC Director Robert Redfield nor Anne Schuchat — the principal deputy director who has played key roles in the agency’s emergency responses stretching back two decades, including the 2009 influenza pandemic — have appeared on the podium during White House briefings by the coronavirus task force for more than a week.

Redfield did join a smaller briefing Wednesday afternoon, for the first time since March 9. He and three other task force members stood with President Trump and Vice President Pence for the day’s second task force appearance. The event, which lasted seven minutes, followed a task force meeting with nurses groups, according to the White House. Trump and Pence were the only ones who spoke, and they took no questions. Continue reading

Anthony Fauci undercuts Trump on the flu and other coronavirus assertions

Washington Post logoMidway through a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, a House Republican asked Anthony Fauci, a member of the president’s coronavirus task force, if he was offended by the idea that he could be prevented from speaking openly about the coronavirus by the Trump administration.

“With all due respect,” Fauci said, “I served six presidents and have never done anything other than tell the exact scientific evidence and made policy recommendations based on the science and the evidence.”

The rest of his testimony reinforced that Fauci isn’t exactly toeing anybody’s line. Over and over again, he differed with President Trump’s talking points that play down the threat posed by the novel coronavirus, and he even differed with decisions Trump has made. Continue reading.

Hearing on coronavirus ends abruptly as White House tells experts to come to ’emergency meeting’

AlterNet logoOn Wednesday morning, medical experts, including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, were testifying before the House Oversight Committee on what to expect from the coronavirus epidemic in the United States. According to Fauci, “The bottom line: It is going to get worse.” Again and again, the information provided in the hearing completely contradicted the rosy statements that have been coming from Donald Trump and other White House officials and warned of a dire situation ahead.

But before the House could learn too many details, the hearing ended in an abrupt and astounding manner, as the witnesses simply got up and left. At 11:30 ET, Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney was told that the witnesses had to depart. In an attempt to explain what was happening, Fauci said they were going to an “emergency meeting” at the White House. Then, to add extra confusion, the White House immediately claimed that the meeting was not an emergency … it was just something that Fauci and Redfield didn’t know about and that was so urgent that they had to leave in the middle of congressional testimony.

On Tuesday, Trump appeared before the nation and assured everyone, “It will go away, just stay calm.” But before his testimony was cut off, Dr. Fauci made a number of statements that were exactly counter to everything that Trump, Mike Pence, and the whole galaxy of Fox News surrogates have been trying to pass off on the nation. Continue reading.

CDC under fire for not releasing information on how coronavirus patients recovered

AlterNet logoThe CDC is again falling short of its responsibilities under the impending coronavirus pandemic. The agency that was once considered the best public health agency in the world for preventing the spread of infectious disease has withered under President Donald Trump, who installed as the head of the CDC a physician who “has no experience leading a public health agency.”

First the CDC botched the coronavirus test. The CDC insisted on creating and producing its own test rather than using one from the World Health Organization. Then it produced a faulty one that renders the test useless.

That likely explains why less than 500 people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19, while in other countries the number of people tested is dramatically higher. South Korea, according to the CDC, has tested 70,940 people as of Feb. 28. Continue reading.