CDC

Government Gag Rules Keep Vital Information From The Public

February 24, 2024 Kathryn Foxhall, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, Journalism, Media, Pandemic, Press Freedom

Reporting on the government institution charged with saving us from the Covid pandemic was restricted enough to leave real holes in what we knew. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—like many other organizations these days, public and private—prohibits its employees from speaking freely to reporters. At many entities, the rules mean staff members cannot have any unauthorized contact with reporters, with media inquiries often redirected to a public information office (PIO). The forced notification of the higher-ups is quite enough to silence many employees about anything that would displease the bosses.

The CDC Is Beholden To Corporations And Lost Our Trust

April 4, 2022 The People's CDC, The Guardian. Create! Capitalism, CDC, COVID-19, Health Care

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.

Flight Attendant Union Criticizes CDC For Decision

December 31, 2021 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Resist! Airlines, CDC, COVID-19, Transportation, Unions

Flight Attendant union president and labor leader Sara Nelson is criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for changing its guidance on quarantining for COVID-19 after business leaders asked the agency to cut its recommendations by half, potentially at the cost of public health. Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International, accused the CDC in a statement of making its decision to benefit businesses that may be experiencing staffing issues, rather than stemming the spread of the virus. “We said we wanted to hear from medical professionals on the best guidance for quarantine, not from corporate America advocating for a shortened period due to staffing shortages,” Nelson said.

Relief For Millions As US Apex Court Keeps Eviction Bans In Place

June 30, 2021 People's Dispatch. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, Evictions, Housing

In a step that brings relief for millions of low-income families across the United States, the Supreme Court decided against a stay on a federally-imposed eviction moratorium. On Tuesday, June 29, the Supreme Court decided by a split vote (5-4) to deny a request by a group of landlords seeking to impose a federal district court’s ruling to block a residential eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The justices decided to not allow the stay as the federal judge’s ruling is being appealed by the federal government. In May this year, a group of corporate landlords and realtors’ association secured a judgement to block the Joe Biden administration’s decision to extend the CDC eviction moratorium until July 31.

Stark Racial Disparities Persist In Vaccinations

May 26, 2021 Hannah Recht, Rachana Pradhan and Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News. Educate! CDC, Health Care, Vaccine

The data, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to a public records request, gives a sweeping national look at the race and ethnicity of vaccinated people on a state-by-state basis. Yet nearly half of those vaccination records are missing race or ethnicity information.

NNU President Jean Ross, RN, at event to honor the more than 400 registered nurses who have died from the Covid-19 pandemic

Largest Nurses Union Condemns CDC Rollback On COVID Protection Guidance

May 17, 2021 National Nurses United. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, Health Care, PPE

National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the United States, today condemned new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance stating that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks, avoid crowds or large gatherings, and no longer needed to isolate after exposure or get tested unless they develop symptoms. Nurses say that given the threat to their patients across the country, they are especially disappointed that the CDC would ease up its Covid guidance on the heels of International Nurses Day.

COVID-19 Cases Among Health Care Workers Under-Reported

October 1, 2020 Kristian Hernandez, Fort Worth Star Telegram. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, Healthcare workers, Transparency

Fiana Tulip spent the last 10 weeks trying to figure out how her mother, a health care worker in Dallas, contracted and died of COVID-19. Isabelle Papadimitriou, 64, was a respiratory therapist at the Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation. She died on July 4, one week after contracting the novel coronavirus. Tulip said she learned after talking with her mother’s colleagues and reading her journals and text messages that the hospital failed to alert her mother and other staff members at the rehabilitation center that one of the patients had tested positive for COVID-19.

Nobody Accurately Tracks Health Care Workers Lost To COVID-19

August 3, 2020 By Nina Martin, ProPublica. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, Deaths, Healthcare workers

Anesthesiologist Claire Rezba, scrolling through the news on her phone, was dismayed. “I felt like her sacrifice was really great and her child’s sacrifice was really great, and she was just this anonymous woman, you know? It seemed very trivializing.” For days, Rezba would click through Google, searching for a name, until in late March, the news stories finally supplied one: Diedre Wilkes. And almost without realizing it, Rezba began to keep count. The next name on her list was world-famous, at least in medical circles: James Goodrich, a pediatric neurosurgeon in New York City and a pioneer in the separation of twins conjoined at the head. One of his best-known successes happened in 2016, when he led a team of 40 people in a 27-hour procedure to divide the skulls and detach the brains of 13-month-old brothers. Rezba, who’d participated in two conjoined-twins cases during her residency, had been riveted by that saga. Goodrich’s death on March 30 was a gut-punch; “it just felt personal.” Clearly, the coronavirus was coming for health care professionals, from the legends like Goodrich to the ones like Wilkes who toiled out of the spotlight and, Rezba knew, would die there.

New CDC Guidelines Could Worsen COVID-19 Spread And Racial Disparities

April 15, 2020 National Nurses United. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, health, Pandemic, social distancing

New guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encouraging workers exposed to the coronavirus to stay on the job would likely worsen the spread of the coronavirus and exacerbate the disparity of infected cases, and deaths, of African Americans that has become a national scandal. Under its new recommendations, the CDC revokes previous guidelines that most workers who are exposed to the virus should be isolated for a period of 14 days. Instead, CDC says essential workers can mainly just wear a mask and not practice social distancing, “as work duties permit,” a significant loophole that can be easily exploited by employers. “The loosened guidelines are dangerous, and risk exposing other workers and the public to infection, with supposed mitigation measures that are far less effective in reducing the threat of spreading the virus...

CDC Tested Only 77 People This Week; Coronavirus Testing Slow Around The Nation

March 13, 2020 Alexander Nazaryan, News.yahoo.com Educate! CDC, Coronavirus, COVID-19, health

WASHINGTON — Despite insistent promises from the Trump administration, coronavirus testing in the United States appears to be proceeding with a marked lack of urgency. An examination of state and federal records by Yahoo News finds that American states are, on average, testing fewer than 100 people per day — while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tested fewer than 100 people total in the first two days of this week.

Daily movement news and resources