Today in closing the barn doors after the horses have left, migrated halfway across the world, and founded a bloodsport-centered dystopian society in the desert.
Old name: CDC
New name: BCD (Bloodsport-Centered Dystopia)
Completely useless organization. As someone in the field of biology the amount of times that "we're following CDC guidelines" was quoted in emails to me should have been illegal. I get it, the CDC says students can hump each other maskless in the classroom, but I'd rather not have my class room be a super spreader event.
I remember when the CDC first started reducing mask/isolation guidelines a research university I worked with was discussing changing their policy on masks/remote courses/etc to follow. The entire biology department had to get together and basically threaten to stop teaching for the university to continue requiring masks :agony-soviet:
Our department was the only one to continue requiring masking in doors up until the end of last Spring. During the August/September surge last year I had about 40% of my students contract COVID and was never contacted for contact tracing or anything like that. I also had a student get a medical exemption from masking, which raised hell since the other ones wanted to remove their masks when he didn't have his on. It was a hell of a semester. Thankfully President Biden has soundly defeated COVID and I won't have to do extra work to catch students up in class from plague.
Edit: And to add, while I was having 40% of my students contract COVID the University was pushing for us to teach fully in person and was threatening untenured faculty if they continued to stream their lectures.
Yeah very excited to see how the Fall semester goes now that COVID has been completely wiped from the academic psyche allowing us to pack enormous groups of students into small, poorly-ventilated spaces, with no pressure on them to reduce socializing. Fortunately we've come full-circle back to "if we don't test we don't have cases", so I imagine instead we'll just have a statistically significant increase in absences and flu-like symptoms
1,000,000+ deaths (reported, and likely under reported)
"flawed"
:amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap: Only in the USA! :amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap:
This has got to have zero to do with public health. I seriously can't believe the CDC is doing a "shakeup" as bullshit PR. And they are doing so right before the elections to benefit the dems and create the illusion of change. This is politics. And it's performative sounds-good kabuki.
Walensky is an straight up ultra-ghoul.
Biden spent 10,000s of dollars on Walensky to improve her messaging. I'm not even making that up. I learned about it a few weeks ago. It's dividends time. I read the article quickly and it instantly enraged me but I didn't see a single fucking word about CDC's main goal that's literally in the title of the center's name: "disease control". It's all about how they will improve messaging.
On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky shared a series of changes with CDC leadership and staff designed to "transform" the organization and its work culture by improving how the agency shares information, develops public health guidance and communicates with the American public.
[...]
This year, the agency has struggled to strike a balance between the competing interests of a virus that continues to find ways to evade vaccines and natural immunity, and a public that is weary of taking the sort of precautions that federal and state governments have mandated.
[...]
Several school districts, including those in New York City and Philadelphia, are taking more precautions than the CDC now recommends as students return.
[...]
In March 2020, 79 percent of Americans said public health officials, including those at the CDC, were doing a good job responding to the pandemic, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. By May 2022, only 52 percent of Americans thought so, Pew found.
[...]
Among the structural changes to come out of the reviews are the appointment of former HHS Deputy Secretary Mary Wakefield to lead a team overseeing the overhaul, as well as the creation of a new executive council, built by Wakefield and reporting to Walensky, that will "determine agency priorities, track progress and align budget decisions, with a bias toward public health impact."
The agency did not offer a specific timeline for when the council would be established, but noted broadly in a statement that "the work ahead will take time and engagement at all levels of the organization."
[...]
The overhaul seeks to change "the CDC's culture" by moving away from a "misaligned" approach of incentivizing staff to publish their research in scientific publications and instead encouraging personnel to produce research and data aimed at public health policy and action, the CDC official said.
[...]
Walensky will also seek more authority for the CDC, through Congress and the Biden administration, to mandate data collection from states, to move money to external partners faster during an emergency and to offer more competitive salaries for recruiting, among other things.
If only the state had better copy in its public health communications, then people would be better informed and make the right individual choices! :very-intelligent:
Previously in a c-suite meeting room at the CDC...
"Director Walensky, as you know my field is not public health and I have no knowledge about such issues. But my bailiwick is public relations and I must ask - can we change a lynchpin term? I know it would be difficult if not controversial but I think it would help you and your efforts." The PR guy is very savvy. He knows his prey. He knows how she works. She's spending money to benefit herself and her career.
"Um... What term exactly?"
"The word 'public' in 'public health' is a serious PR issue. Would it be possible for you to commission a study to determine the feasibility of changing 'public health' to 'individualized health'."
"That is indeed thought provoking."
At that point he's dead certain she'll commission the bullshit study that will cost upwards of 100 grand and he'll make a nice fat commission. It's probably morally and ethically bad to corrupt public health in this manner but - hey - he's got car payments and a mortgage to pay. And sweet rides and a fabulous home aren't cheap.
The reviews concluded that the “traditional scientific and communication processes were not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to an agency statement.
I was under the impression that the “DC” in “CDC” stood for “disease control” but I guess I was wrong
I didn't read the article but...
I assume that they are going to do nothing and say that alerting the people to viruses is bad and that they're gonna do a new "secret clandestine operation doctrine" to essentially let new viruses happen unabated in secret and let the treats flow while pretending to fight viruses out of view like James Bond.
