The CDC and misinformation
The CDC withholds some statistics because it’s afraid the information will be turned into disinformation by the readers.
Now, there’s a great way to gain people’s trust: withhold information because you think they’re stupid.
The funny thing – I mean the sad thing – is that many people have rightly come to distrust the bobbing, weaving, cagy, withholding, mind-changing, perhaps-colluding-with-China CDC, and that this distrust is partly what leads these people to interpret each nugget of CDC’s information in the worst possible light. And yes, some of these people don’t understand statistics and misinterpret the significance of what they’re reading; that’s true for the public in general, pro-CDC and con-CDC. Statistics are inherently difficult and research on human subjects is especially difficult to interpret, and it takes a lot of math and logic to understand.
But if the CDC had been straight with us from the start, I think things would have been a great deal better.For example – I was thinking today about how, at the beginning, we were told to wash our food and/or the plastic containers it came in, and to let paper packages sit somewhere for a day or so without using them. A lot of people never did that – too much of a pain in the butt – but many did.
I did it for quite some time, waiting for further word from the CDC about whether it was necessary. I was expecting some research and a big announcement, but it never came. By the fall of 2020 you could find articles like this that said “You don’t need to bother anymore – probably.” But I recall that you had to search for the information and the news didn’t reach a lot o people. Somewhere along the line I had stopped on my own; just got tired of it and by then the huge scare at the beginning had mostly died down. How many continued with the virtually useless and yet tremendously annoying task?
And of course the CDC’s near-constant do-si-do-ing around masks was a huge generator of distrust, as is the “from COVID versus with COVID” death statistics controversy.
So if the CDC is so very wary of people receiving or generating misinformation/disinformation, why has the CDC itself put out so much? That question is a variation on the old fools/knaves theme, and your answer depends on whether you think the CDC is composed of fools, knaves, or both, and how much you think their COVID reaction has to do with The Great Reset.
I think “why wasn’t it major news whenever a covid measure was walked back?” is a good question. Another example is not just sanitizing packages, but sanitizing everything in general. Some have dubbed it “hygiene theater” and that’s what it is: theater. (Masks, especially cloth masks, and unenforceable “social distancing” requirements are theater, too.) Yet so many buildings still go along with it, over a year after they should have known it was unnecessary.
https://news.yahoo.com/end-the-hygiene-theater-cdc-says-173440864.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
I think the main issue is the government has never wanted too much information that contradicts the Narrative to be widely known all at once. It would prevent them from making announcements in a very selective, theatrical way, like with Joe Biden coming out without a mask last spring (even though you always could have gone outside without a mask) and from stringing people along (“be a good sheep for just a little longer and I might take away the mandates at the end of the month”). It would also undermine their credibility with even more of the population.
Now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are both quietly studying neurological problems that have appeared in people after receiving the vaccine. They got a lot of adverse reaction reports. The so-called vaccine was rushed into use with little testing.
Trump was president for the first 10 months of this ordeal. His inability to recognize the obvious snakes in the grass for so long and then an unwillingness to do anything about them was a true failing of his administration. Remember Robert ‘a mask is better than a vaccine’ Redfield was a Trump nominee.
And to those who say well there was nothing he could do then why even bother electing a Republican as president if there is nothing they can do especially one who is going to ‘drain the swamp?’
Ray:
Adverse reaction reports don’t mean anything by themselves. They are merely things like: two weeks after my shot I had this problem. Causation is far harder to determine. With an immunization program that involves something like 200 million people, and a hotline to report adverse reactions, you’re going to get a great many such reports. They do in fact need to be investigated. But what needs to be determined is whether the incidence in a particular population of vaccinated people is greater than the usual incidence of such problems in an unvaccinated population (grouped and compared by age, by basic health, and a bunch of other parameters). That isn’t easy to do, and it takes time.
I am talking not so much about vaccine data but the other things that were put into place early on under Trump.
It was very early on when Birx (the worst, maybe worse than Fauci) casually said that anybody that died after a positive test would be labeled a COVID death and there were tons of scientists pushing back against that but the administration just let it continue and that set in cement the problem of ‘with’ COVID vs. ‘from’ COVID.
Again the failure to recognize the need for outside people was a catastrophic error of the Trump administration.
Griffin:
I disagree. The situation was unprecedented and also required technical know-how to determine whether something was true or not – as well as taking the passage of time. Trump used the CDC people who were already in place; it seemed like an emergency that required quick action, and he was also following the rest of the world with the initial lockdowns. Trump isn’t a scientist. And the facts only emerged over time. I think practically the only Western nation that didn’t lock down was Sweden.
Trump would have been excoriated and blamed no matter what he did. And the virus would have run its course no matter what he (or Republicans) did. The lockdowns were a big mistake, but except for the initial month or so they weren’t up to Trump. He left it up to the states, and the states followed the CDC or didn’t follow it. Some states opened up relatively quickly and some still haven’t opened up.
I say this with no glee, but our country, the leadership of our country, our country’s government, our media, much of our artistic production, much of our commercial production… is abysmal. A joke.
There are a lot of people in our nation, and many, many of them are wonderful, fantastic, truly great humans doing great and good things daily. However, if I were paying attention and a citizen of another country and had young children I would not be holding out the U.S. as an example. Much of what Americans do is good, but the net result of far too much that we produce is sub-par. Inferior. Trash.
Joe Biden is the ideal archetype for the current state of America.
To a foreigner, what does “made in America” mean, in 2022? Do any foreigners listen to our President’s speeches for hope? Our Vice President’s? Do any Americans? Do any foreigners turn to the U.S. press to learn the truth? The Daily Mail and Guardian have done more investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop than any U.S. outlet. Do foreigners go to U.S. films to see archetypes of American patriotism? Do foreigners view American products as the sine quo non of their categories? Automobiles? Electronics? Furniture? Appliances? Our Universities still seem to hold some cache with Asian parents. I’m not sure why. I guess our Bourbon is sought after. Is there anything else? Our own homegrown Olympians switch nations rather than compete for us.
I hope those of us working for good can turn things around, but the last several decades are not a promising trend.
neo,
Well, I guess I don’t like this ‘what was he supposed to do’ kind of response. What he was supposed to do was the right thing even if it is very hard or unpopular in the immediate term.
But again I am talking more about the CDC and the task force or whatever it was called his administration had more control over those and instead they just went along with the bureaucrats that Trump should have known by 2020 were not ‘elite’ in any way.
The CDC lying and constantly changing direction wasn’t just in the first few ‘fog of war’ weeks and again there were plenty of extremely qualified people from the very best institutions calling them out as it was happening.
He or his advisers lacked the backbone to bring them in until Atlas and that was like Aug. or Sept. I believe.
It was a massive failing in my opinion.
Early on, Trump proposed using HCQ as a TREATMENT for COVID.
He was stopped dead in his tracks by Mr. Science himself.
The Democratic Party and uber-corrupt media obligingly, scornfully—and gleefully—piled on.
And so people who didn’t have to die or suffer, died and suffered by the tens of thousands (or more).
As Dr. Fauci continued to lie, joined ty the Democratic Party and the uber-corrupt media. Obligingly, scornfully, gleefully.
Even today there are still those who believe wholeheartedly (and with a scornful chuckle in their hearts) that the ridiculous—and very, very bad—Orange Man proposed using a toxic aquarium cleaner as a treatment.
The false “Lancet” article was the nail in the coffin, even if it was withdrawn later on and labeled “problematic” or “insufficiently researched…alas” or whatever feeble evasion du jour.
The gruesome and murderous fact that ANY TREATMENT was denied, covered up, derided and ridiculed by the medical authorities points—far more than the mask-no mask debacle—to the murderous and undeniably political intent on the part of Fauci, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH and the Democratic Party who promoted and supported those monsters.
…but TRUMP!!!
Another example Birx and the Trump administration set up the community spread guidance mid 2020 and it has never been adjusted. These were totally subjective or as I like to call them made up. Currently almost the entire country still qualifies as a ‘high transmission’ areas.
https://twitter.com/JeanRees10/status/1472269185724080132
This of course was Pence’s choice. He may actually have more blame than Trump.
At the beginning of the pandemic I followed the MA state numbers very closely because my late wife was in a locked down nursing home and I couldn’t visit her except under very limited conditions once a week. The numbers showed that the average age of death was 82 with at least two underlying conditions compared to life expectancy of 80. This is hardly worrying for younger healthy adults. Between 18 and 65 there were a few deaths, but always with underlying conditions. Anyone under 18 was invulnerable with zero deaths.
The state stopped publishing these numbers in early August 2020 and made it very hard to find the raw data to be able to do my own calculations.
About then they switched to cases, which are bs. Every year during cold and flu season people get sick = cases! The symptoms vary from a few sniffles for a day to two miserable weeks in bed. Cases were never before reported. They are used to keep the rubes in fear, even though Covid, from the numbers above, is not exactly a dangerous flu.
These numbers motivated the Great Barrington Declaration which advocated protecting the elderly and leaving everyone else alone. Fauci and his sidekick, the head of the CDC, slandered the MDs who put this suggestion forward, slander willingly spread by the MSM.
I’m willing to bet that the CDC’s numbers today, a year and a half later, would be nearly the same. It would destroy any justification for mandates, masks, social distancing, and lockdowns. Who’s going to get jabbed, except the elderly, with the danger minimal for everyone else?
I’m convinced that every action taken by Fauci and company was done to maximize the money made by big pharma and the share that the CDC would get.
Along with the lack of hard data that neo highlighted (and I was truly astounded and dumbfounded by that), there was no hopeful or positive messaging.
It was a miracle that children seemed relatively unaffected by the virus. That should have been proclaimed by the end of the first summer and lauded as a true wonder! “Yes, it seems our elderly still need to isolate and be very cautious until we have a vaccine, but children can go to school, camps, play sports!” And the same for most everyone under the age of 45. By August we knew healthy folks under 45 were very likely to recover from COVID if contracted. And, very few would need hands on medical care.
And absolutely no positive advice on prevention; “Get outside! Fresh air is good for you and the virus doesn’t last long outdoors.” “Hike, cycle, swim, canoe… The virus doesn’t spread far outside, especially when doing solo activities, and staying lean helps avoid serious illness.” Etc., etc.
Regardless of the lack of positive physical advice from the CDC, their messaging was horrendous for humans’ mental health. And I mean horrendous in the literal definition of that adjective.
We were leaving mail outside in a plastic box in the sun for a while before we brought it in when this thing first started.
And then we stopped doing that.
As neo outlined, after the first several months the CDC was extremely fortunate to have 50 different COVID science labs running concurrently in the U.S. No other country had that!
Did the CDC exploit that environment for research, testing and data collection?
No.
Did the CDC report what states were learning from their varied trials?
No.
Nearly unimaginable levels of ineptitude.
“…horrendous…”
“…ineptitutde…”
It was intended to be horrendous.
As such it certainly was most certainly not “ineptitude”. (But they did make mistakes in their execution—a perennial weak point with perennial liars….)
Quite possibly, the citizenry has been able to wake up the scam IN TIME, so that the US will be able to stymie the planned takeover “by the skin of its teeth”.
(One hopes that Canada will be able to, as well, et al.)
The fear, though, is that once the Covid scam has been outed and the “crisis” deflated, the usual suspects will go onto the “next best thing”: flaunting the “Global Warming”(TM) “crisis” for all its worth, and/or flogging the “Republican are racist and anti-American because they want to deny POC the vote” canard so as to declare a “national emergency” just in time for the next elections.
Paul in Boston at 3:37 pm & Barry Meislin on at 3:12 pm: Both great comments.
Why are bureaucrats so inept, so unable to be open and forehanded? Because bureaucrats are always more interested in the bureaucracy and their fiefdoms than in doing the job they are appointed to do. It’s why government should always be limited to the two things they can do well. (Defense and foreign policy!)
Scott Atlas was brought in by Trump to get another set of eyes on the Covid issues. He has written a scathing book in which he says that he was studying data and came to meetings with sheets of data and recommendations that Fauci and Birx would just ignore. Fauci and Birx apparently set in motion a plan to get him off the task force and succeeded. IMO, Trump was a captive of Fauci and Birx as well as getting weak leadership from Pence. That is, Pence deferred to the “scientists” and was not willing/able to allow true debate and questioning of the policies. It was uncharted territory, and everyone was running scared. I agree that by fall of 2020, Pence and Trump should have begun to push back but they were probably too involved in the campaign by then. 🙁
Had Trump acted at any point to rein in the CDC and NIH, which could only happen by firing Fauci, Redfield or Wallensky, he would have been impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate. No doubt of that at all. He would have been pilloried for going against “the science” and causing the deaths of “millions”. The GOPe would have welcomed a Pres. Pence.
The leadership at the NIH, CDC, FDA, Pelosi, etc. in demonizing and blocking alternative treatment protocols using HCQ and Ivermectin are guilty of mass murder and crimes against humanity. They are modern day Himmlers.
J.J.,
“I agree that by fall of 2020, Pence and Trump should have begun to push back but they were probably too involved in the campaign by then. ?”
Trump certainly expected to win and in the aftermath, he might well have planned to further clean house.
Geoffrey,
He didn’t have to fire those people just bring on other advisers and start listening to them. Keep on praising Fauci but stop taking his advice.
Let them attack his advisers from Stanford, Harvard etc. because they were going to attack him no matter what and those advisers would not have said do nothing by the way.
Griffin,
Initially and on theface of it, that seems lke a reasonable strategy.
But can any President ignore the “scientific consensus” as offered by the directors of the federal government’s foremost medical leadership? Not just ignore but implement policies in direct contradiction to the CDC, NIH and FDA’s assertions? Perhaps he could but could he withstand the political firestorm that would engulf his Presidency? I’m doubtful that any conservative President could do so.
Geoffrey,
Yes, but as we all know he got attacked for everything anyway and I’m not sure that it was the consensus of the leadership because they were all over the map and blowing with the winds. Plus, again Atlas, Battacharya and the like weren’t saying do nothing they were talking focused protection plus it could have been absolutely drilled home over and over about ‘with’ and ‘from’ deaths and PCR testing and cycle thresholds being way too high. These are things that absolutely could have been done or at least tried but instead they allowed the nonsense to become ingrained in the system.
I can’t argue that much greater steps could have been taken. My one serious criticism of Trump is that he was far too reliant and accepting of bad advice. He got rid of the wrong people and allowed himself to be surrounded with covert enemies.
Rufus @ 3pm: I think this is the most damning item in your list of flaws and failures: “Do any foreigners turn to the U.S. press to learn the truth? ” As we appreciate here, our republic cannot work at all well when the people aren’t able to exercise their virtue (and duty) of understanding the issues and proclaiming their preferences to their representatives.
GB: your view that firing Fauci et al. would have led to impeachment and then conviction strikes me as unlikely. Yes, the Dem House might have impeached him, but the Senate would not have convicted him. I envision a defense along the lines of “yes, I listened to the govt experts, but also sought counter opinions; and then found those alternative views to be more persuasive, both for medical treatments (therapies + vaccine development) and for addressing adverse mental health and economic impacts. Thus, it would have been a high crime for me not to remove the flawed govt actors rather than keep them around.” Such a defense, plus testimony from the non-govt experts, would have convinced enough Republicans (and maybe some Dems) to avoid conviction (and possibly even impeachment).
The criticism against Pence is also interesting, given my understanding of his high standing from his terms as governor of Indiana. If Trump relied on him to be his real controller over the pandemic response, and Pence did not exercise real critical leadership of the team, Trump might be forgiven for not tracking it that closely when his VP was “in charge”. Of course, “the buck [still] stops …” But if Pence did raise personnel or other issues with Trump and was waved off, we aren’t privy to those conversations.
““Do any foreigners turn to the U.S. press to learn the truth?”
Believe it or not, most of the foreign (esp. European) media is worse….
I wonder if this acknowledgement was forced as a result of the lies Fauci and Walensky had advanced at their last senate hearing concerning adverse events reporting ( 2/12/22 IIRC).
In that session they’d repeatedly claimed that efficacy and injury data was unavailable at the level of detail necessary to answer the basic questions they were presented. Yet they repeatedly made claims in that forum predicated on the same information they had denied having access to.
This was the same session in which Walensky claimed not to have any knowledge of mortality estimates arising from adverse events – because she ‘hadn’t brought that with her’ – and then confirmed it was ‘about a hundred’ when an incredulous senator pressed her for a ballpark estimate – ‘well is it a hundred or …?’
Lying of that sort is not simply intended to deceive people, it’s also meant to demoralize and insult them. It’s meant to convey that the questioner has no standing and doesn’t deserve an honest answer. And that has been the evident position of the CDC since the beginning, not simply towards the public but also towards the broader public health community outside of government institutions.