I think a lot of these problems come from an "elitist" mentality of some scientists and a lot media people. They believe that the "sheepeople" are too dumb to think through logical arguments and can only be motivated to action if you manipulate them through their emotions or that it's ok to deliberately use misleading or faulty arguments because they think its for the greater good. So instead of telling people that it is important to conserve N95 masks because there was a shortage and hospital workers are most at risk due to the nature of the environment. They say there is no evidence masks work... but please bring any masks you have to your local hospital we desperately need them...
Not just ordinary "sheepeople".... Fauci when lying about gain of function research to Rand Paul tried to play the "you don't know what you are talking about card"... Paul went through medical school... this isn't a question on this subject matter being too complicated for us to understand, it has to do with they are using "complexity" to obscure straight up lying for political ends.
There is always politics in public policy. Science tells you what the consequences of your actions might be, it doesn't tell you anything about the desirability of those consequences.
If your goal is to eradicate a virus, science tells you the correct policy choice is to ban all interpersonal interaction for several months, stop all transportation, and put locks on everybody's doors so they can't leave their houses.
So as an organization, the CDC should not set policy. They should present analysis and projections, and answer questions from congress. Then you let congress decide based on that. This is why the CBO has been able to maintain its neutral expert reputation. They don't say "we recommend this bill," they say "if you pass bill x, we project that it will have the following impact on the budget."
Yeah, exactly. Science can tell you how to get a physical result, but when you're making public policy, human happiness and morality matter just as much, and happiness and morality are political.
Policy makers need to balance the countable mathematical goals with the uncountable moral and political goals, and Hume's Guillotine tells us there is no calculus that can tell you the right balance.
I'm sure the CDC could've done better, but even if they did the political benefits in terms of public trust likely wouldn't have actually materialized. I live in England, the country whose early warnings about the dangers of the Delta variant this article points to as proof the CDC and the US government should've known, and even here there's pervasive media-fuelled conspiracy theories about why the government didn't close off travel to India before the Delta variant got here (before it was even recognised as dangerous). Supposedly, the only reason was because they wanted a trade deal with India and we could've avoided the whole wave if not for that, and it even got nicknamed the "Boris variant" after our prime minister because of that.
Right. Why are we (US) banning Slovenia but not Malaysia. Look at the curves. Hanlon’s razor only goes so far. At some point accountability must become part of the discussion.
It's fairly obvious to me that the CDC never had a chance at public trust in the first place, because public agencies don't get to have trust in the 21st century, period. Honestly - name a public agency that's widely trusted and respected, on a bipartisan basis, and I'll give you a public agency that people don't pay attention to or care about.
The moment the CDC came into the national spotlight in March 2020, that was it for their bipartisan reputation as a trustworthy agency.
Part of public trust is believing in good faith decision making, which implies that mistakes are seen positively or neutrally in hindsight - part of the process of learning, not evidence of corruption or gross ineptitude.
When is the last time a major US policy mistake didn't result in a political field day?
The CDC never stood a chance, if we're being honest.
I'm not sure that's true in times of crisis. Bush's approval ratings and trust levels with the general public went through the roof during 9/11. Obviously he squandered that, just as the CDC has done here.
Just to be clear, I believe this is an emergent phenomenon with social media and the internet. "21st century" maybe would be better stated as around 2009 or so.
If 9/11 happened in the current world (under trump OR biden), the political circus, division, and paranoia would be immense.
Fire departments and school systems are local agencies so of course the internet rage machine doesn't affect them
I'll grant you medicare. I don't think transportation, NASA, or NSF are really something people really care about (in the emergent "should I wear a mask when I go outside" kind of care), but maybe I'm wrong on those.
It seems like the CDC doesn't learn from what is happening in other countries. The initial response was completely botched, including a costly testing delay, because they didn't learn from China. Now they are making conflicting statements and changing their minds over the Delta wave as data comes in from the US outbreak when they could have got it right from day 1 just by looking at how the virus behaved when it hit the UK.
The CCP isn't the only source of information about what is happening in China.
China is not North Korea. There is a large foreign presence in China. Wuhan is a large city (between Moscow and Seoul in population) with many foreigners present there for business. The US, the UK, France, and South Korea maintain diplomatic offices in Wuhan.
That's a lot of non-Chinese observers who could see first hand what is happening in Wuhan and report back to their home countries.
This comes across as really out of touch. Has the writer spent any time in the large part of the country that still doesn't believe COVID is real and has complete distrust in the CDC and anything the current administration does?
It's just not possible for a country as large and divided as the US to have the CDC take a "forceful, quick, clear and unified response" she wants them too.
Sure it is. The caveat is that the CDC will only be providing information, rather than playing politics but the point is that this is not only ok, but desirable.
Let other departments spin the message. If the CDC doesn't stick to science and facts they'll undermine their own authority (which to a large degree they've already done).
Yup. I think the problem in the current truthiness and messaging is that the CDC -- and more broadly the scientific establishment -- have undermined their own credibility. It's really hard to roll that back.
"As of [todays date], the CDC recommends the use of masks in indoor spaces.
Droplet transmission is currently thought to be the leading mechanism of Covid-19 transmission and masks have been shown to reduce the quantity of droplets expelled and inhaled. Definitive data is not available on how effective masks are on reducing transmission of Covid-19 specifically."
What not to say might include "If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask" followed by an about-face a few months later. It's well-established that the CDC knowingly provided bad advice about the need for masks in spring 2020 to avoid a run on masks: https://web.archive.org/web/20200329005833/https://www.cdc.g...
Someone in a position of medical authority knowingly giving harmful advice is incredibly damaging and unethical.
"As of [todays date], the CDC does not recommend the use of masks in indoor spaces by people without Covid-19 symptoms.
Droplet transmission is currently thought to be the leading mechanism of Covid-19 transmission and masks have been shown to reduce the quantity of droplets expelled and inhaled. Definitive data is not available on how effective masks are on reducing transmission of Covid-19 specifically.
Despite the possible benefit, the CDC recommends reserving masks for the sick, healthcare workers, and high risk groups while the current shortage of available N95 masks is in effect."
The point is to provide accurate information. Lying might have short-term benefits in manipulating behavior, but destroys trust. If the run on masks is still a problem, the solution should have been more government involvement in the the supply chain and distribution of the masks.
When I saw this NYT headline, I rolled my eyes, because NYT has had some seriously misleading and at least borderline-dishonest reporting about COVID, but I paused and remembered that Zeynep Tufekci sometimes writes for them, and Zeynep is the one person who has stood out as the absolute best reporting on COVID I've seen from anyone.
Her critiques of the CDC generally aren't dependent on a public that trusts the government. Yeah, a lot of people will reject the CDC's guidance even if it's good, but there are plenty of people who want to follow CDC guidance, and they struggle to understand it, and when they do follow it, it leads them to stupid decisions because the CDC's advice isn't consistently reasonable.
If you're interested in responsible and intelligent COVID-related analysis, she's the one to follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zeynep
> Has the writer spent any time in the large part of the country that still doesn't believe COVID is real
Perhaps it’s the other way around? As in the large part of country lost their faith in public health administration and in general institutions because of their mixed and conflicting message and in some cases playing ideologies?
You are out of touch. Large parts of the country do not believe that COVID is 'not real'. Such characterizations are wild exaggerations.
And IIRC, in the last administration, large swaths of the country had no trust in anything they did. For example, the current VP said she would not take a vaccine developed under the previous administration.
Ultimately, CDC knows that the country is incredibly divided politically and should adjust its message accordingly. That was true for the previous admin, and it's true for this one.
I spent much of the last year traveling in places like the pan handle of Florida. Most people I encountered did not believe COVID was any worse than the flu. They were not going to wear masks or socially distance, no matter what "Biden's CDC" said. Having talked to dozens and dozens of people, and watched how different communities behaved, it is definitely real.
While my friends in places like SF had to wait months to get a shot, I walked into a grocery store and got one without any waiting. The maskless women who gave it to me was surprised I was there because I was the only person under 70 she had seen come in.
Agree, you can’t wrap these areas with low vaccination rates up in a tidy little virus denial ball to explain why they aren’t getting vaccines. It’s many reasons with a really large one being that the virus until relatively recently probably didn’t hit those areas very hard. So in a sense my buddy who lives in the woods alone off the Suwannee River—who rarely goes into town and generally only watches gunsmoke reruns on TV, simply doesn’t see Covid as the threat that folks in NYC in April 2020 did. He probably doesn’t even know someone who has had it.
Knowing something is real, but not being affected or concerned about it is a lot different then claiming it doesn’t exist.
Not sure of where you are from, but I am in the US and in state that had a whole lot of cases. I live in a metropolitan area with several million people. I know personally, maybe 20 people who have had it. One of the 20 was hospitalized from it. Personally I know zero people that have died from it, and only know a 2-3 acquaintances who have lost loved ones. All of those lost were well into their 80s.
So it’s not unusual that in a rural area…folks may not see Covid as the threat that others do. I viewed it as a threat enough to get vaccinated as soon as I was able, but out of an abundance of caution…not fear.
Same I know zero people hospitalized or died. And my aunt lives in a senior community where many got it...
The only person I know who died lives in a third world country and had medical issues. Terribly sad, but I mean we hear stories of all kinds of terrible disease from there.
I don't deny covid at all. I am vaccinated, and was first in line .
What I am not is a fear mongerer. The data show that if you're young and without preexisting conditions your chances of survival without hospitalization are excellent.
I'm sorry you've lost friends, but just because I've also lost friends to mild diseases, like the common cold or common bacteria, doesn't mean I need to tell people who don't think a cold is a big deal that they're a cold denier.
I'll not argue some of the other points you mentioned but it is incorrect to say VP Harris said she would not take a vaccine developed under the previous administration - she said she would not take trump's word on it, but would trust the experts instead:
Trump is not the fda. Trump was never going to 'approve' a vaccine without fda. This sort of fear mongering is responsible for a lot of vaccine hesitancy
It really is not, he was pushing disproven treatments at the time (hydroxychloroquine) which many people still think is a valid treatment today.
It is clear from the data on who is getting vaccinated that folks who voted trump tend to be less likely to be vaccinated. I doubt they're hesitant because of Vice President Kamala Harris' reasonable words.
It's not at all clear this is political unless you're talking with someone who clearly benefits from the political narrative.
Take Alabama, a state with the lowest vaccination rates. In Alabama, blacks and whites are on different sides of the political aisle, yet their vaccination rates are.... The same.
Income, profession, location and education correlate better with vaccination rates than anything..
In general democrats are wealthier than republicans so it is no surprise that they have higher vaccination rates.
Even amongst dems, if you look at the poorer factions which are mainly their nom white factions, vax rates are similarly low.
Based on polling, conservatives are less likely to even consider vaccination:
"while Republicans, rural residents, and White Evangelical Christians continue to be disproportionately more likely to say they will definitely not get vaccinated."
- https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-co...
Thankfully the trend might be changing, folks like Steve Scalise who initially declined the vaccine received the shot and is now advocating for it, but we don't know if this has helped convince conservatives to vaccinate yet as he only did this in July:
> In general democrats are wealthier than republicans so it is no surprise that they have higher vaccination rates.
The vaccine is free. The correlation on vaccination rates to how counties voted is a much stronger relationship than income.
The data lines up with my anecdotal experience as well. The folks I know who are antivax and taking hydroxychloroquine are extremely conservative. When they've talked about their viewpoints they point to Fox and trump as trusted sources on the topic.
You could make an argument that college education plays a large role in whether or not folks are antivax, those numbers closely align with party identification though so I'm not sure that's useful:
"There remains a large gap in vaccine uptake across education, with about eight in ten college graduates (79%) saying they have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared to about six in ten adults without a degree who say the same (59%)"
- https://kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-...
What Kamala actually said in the context of reports that Trump was leaning on the FDA to approve the vaccine.. She's decidedly not refusing to "take a vaccine developed under the previous administration":
> Susan Page (Debate moderator):
> No, no, you’re Senator Harris to me. For life to get back to normal, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other experts say that most of the people who can be vaccinated need to be vaccinated. But half of Americans now say they wouldn’t take a vaccine if it was released now. If the Trump administration approves a vaccine before or after the election, should Americans take it, and would you take it?
> Kamala Harris:
> If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.
I agree, in the end the CDC knows that there are a lot of hurdles to get the information across and will have to adjust. That is really all they can do. A small sticking point is now VP Harris didn't say she won't take the vaccine developed under the previous administration, she said she doesn't trust Trump and would listen do public health experts [0]. She was concerned they would be "muzzled," but was later assured and re-iterated her point on a later interview [1].
Thing is, "the CDC" is thousands of people, almost every one of whom is doing their job the best they can, with honestly earned pride in being a civil servant.
What we see as "the CDC" is largely the product of people at the NYT and other news outlets. The CDC site has far more information than any of us want to read, and when the NYT "summarizes" their words to say something different, the CDC still get the blame.
The leadership of the CDC is helping destroy the labor of all those good people too; Redfield (was it? the director) telling Congress last march that "they had everything they needed to control this disease" was one of the finest displays of burro-crat stupidity in the history of the nation.
I think that's debatable. While I'm sure there are some people at the CDC that are doing a good job, the organization as a whole has just repeatedly bungled. I have followed COVID extremely closely since the very beginning, and I struggle to come up with even a single thing where I can say "The CDC really nailed that."
At a minimum, the leadership is just completely inadequate to deal with this type of problem. My feeling is that the situation is similar to the U.S. Army at the beginning of WWII. The U.S. kept losing battles at the very beginning until large parts of the top leadership that were good at paperwork and bureaucracy but bad at leadership in the field were replaced with leaders that were good at winning battles.
In the same way, the CDC leadership appears to be optimized for a slow pace, and the avoidance of mistakes that they can be blamed for. What we needed was a "wartime CDC" that could make quick, correct decisions based on incomplete data, and use their capacity to go out and acquire more information as it was needed.
from what i can gather from this op/ed is hindsight in 2021 is ever always 20/20 and even the best intentions and efforts in a crisis are open to scorn and ridicule after the fact.
"thats the job." isnt a magic incantation at the end of the day its your best effort. the best the little guy does right is what counts. I once had to supervise a shop floor where a worker amputated three fingers in a machine. i stayed to file paperwork, stayed with the gal while the EMT's arrived, coordinated the next shifts, worked nonstop trying to keep things going with blood on my work slacks and after a sixteen hour day I still didnt feel like i did anything but fail. I poured over safety trainings, studied the machine, and remembered all the safety meetings i gave but that still wasnt enough.
My foreman told me mottos are for boards and suits. at the end of the day the motto is only as good as the action. what did you do, and how well did you do it? If you walk away complaining then you didnt learn anything and nothing will change. if you have things to work on, things to improve and if you take criticism then yeah, you can say you are living up to the motto and striving to meet it every day. ours was "safety is job 1."
I think the CDC tried and did a pretty good job, but what i really want to see is what the CDC and others learn.
I don't think it's viable to defend institutions by saying that things are only obvious in hindsight when other countries did manage to implement sensible policies from the start.
For example Taiwan didn't pretend masks or travel bans are ineffective.
Reminder that this is what the official narrative looked like in feburary-march 2020:
Sure, public institutions can be wrong and should be allowed to course-correct, but some of this wasn't due to uncertainty but deception, perhaps well-intentioned but still a political decision and not a communication of facts. And once this comes to light (as it did) people will remember it and it'll undermine the credibility of their future decisions.
It wasn't just the CDC though - the entire US and to some extent global media, medical and politicial establishments got behind the idea that travel bans were ineffective and counter-productive, the New York Times included. In fact, it's amazing how much US media coverage of why Taiwan was such a success either downplayed or completely omitted to mention their travel restrictions especially early on.
I have no lovefor trump, but Did that really matter in the end? Quantitatively speaking, the EU is about as bad, per capita, as the US, in terms of mortality.
Many of these mistakes were quite easy to recognize as mistakes when they were made. You can also call into question the decision making processes at the CDC without calling into question their intentions.
I sure hope we actually learn from this pandemic rather than being content to blame social media and anti-vaxers for all our problems.
The CDC, like the NYT, has become too politicized that it’s impossible to trust what they say. Unlike the NYT, the CDC can be reformed with the right leadership so that it can begin to earn back the trust of the people. The placement of this op-ed in the NYT smacks with irony.
Half of Americans won't get vaccinated. 2/3 or more aren't listening to the muddled, mealy-mouth messages that change every other day. Some people are still wearing masks where it doesn't matter (outside) and others refuse. It's a public health disaster created by bad leadership.
I’ve done it and it’s a chat message through the app or website with a person who asks maybe once if there’s a way to retain you. I thought that it was going to be horrible but it was pretty standard.
This part of the problem is irrelevant - the ammunition of most such people is infinite. They point at everything, and say "look, I told you" about legitimate and illegitimate things alike, and they imply it serves their beliefs, but in reality their beliefs are exactly as unflappable after each "discovery" as before.
You are starting from the premise that you are correct, and that any evidence against your stance is a problem because it gives the people you have up-front decided are wrong more evidence.
Wouldn't a rational person say "here's some new information, maybe I should incorporate it into my views?"
This can't be a reason to avoid legitimate criticism, though. In fairness, the anti-vaxxers might "produce" some of their own "evidence" regardless of what happens in the real world.
No, I am all for criticizing the CDC's handling of this issue. It was just a statement of fact - every day the CDC messes up the anti-vaxxers get stronger.
I think that if a government agency is enabling the very people they claim to oppose, they've messed up.
Anti vaxxers don't need ammunition. They're the ones who are spouting absolute crap about turning into a butterfly and 5g mind control. No amount of logic will ever convince them
Vaccine sceptics are the ones who are swayed by this, and are much more logical people. They're the ones who read the information and are still unsure. I can't fault them for making an informed decision, but it's difficult when there's so much conflicting information in such a short amount of time.
They'll never have a greater piece of ammo than the term "anti-vaxxer", which immediately shuts down any discussion involving skepticism of these vaccines.
This last one wasn't even close. The CDC straight up lied about vaxxed people not spreading the virus. The knowledge they had the same viral loads as unvaxxed had been around for months. I trust pre-prints more then the CDC now (don't trust pre-prints they haven't undergone any review).
The peer review process is a joke. I trust preprints just as much as peer-reviewed studies.
Which is to say:
1) I read carefully, evaluate the methodology, assume authors are spinning for "high-impact" research, and believe results only once they've been replicated a few times by independent researchers using different methodologies.
2) I use results I haven't vetted like this in a probabilistic way -- they're often good for best practices, or identifying risks, but not as sources of ground truth.
I find it upsetting that the CDC is actively exaggerating the risk to vaccinated people, and the risk that vaccinated people can forward propagate the disease. This columnist does an excellent job explaining these flaws in their recent messaging. Some of the alarmist coverage that's hit front pages in the past week could lead a layperson to think that the vaccines aren't very effective.
Half the comments say the CDC messed up, the other half says they’ve done a decent job but have been hampered by politics and public opinion. Your belief is the CDC is fabricating the data about risks to vaccinated people?
What about the vaccine companies talking about booster shots to improve immunity? If it was already good enough why would anyone need more shots?
What about the amount of breakthrough cases that are happening? Covering those things up or not talking about them is misguiding and lying to the public.
Only when we get unbiased information can trust start to be regained.
The CDC needs to stop. Period.
How many major screw-ups will the public accept before they decide the CDC should have less political power rather than more.
Being understanding to the fact that the CDC is made up of people who are fallible, dealing with an entirely new situation for our species, that information is more often unknown than known, and that changes will be required as the situation evolves is what it means to be a mature, rational adult.
They are doing the best they can in an incredibly difficult time and correcting course when necessary. Grow up.
The point is how our institutions should behave in the presence of unknowns.
1) You can state your recommendations and present the supporting data, assumptions, and unknowns.
2) You can state your recommendations as unquestionable facts, ignore contradictory data, and admit no uncertainty.
Reasonable people can understand that recommendations will shift over time.
That said, to be a credible and respected source of information, you can't lie or overstate your case for maximum impact.
This may come to a shock to the HN audience who thinks technical expertise is all you need, but public relations is really hard when you’re in a crisis.
Yes, the CDC has stumbled multiple times and when you do that during a public health crisis it destroys confidence, but delivering a scientific message in an environment where new data is constantly streaming in is very hard.
At times it seemed to me that repeating stale guidance was the only acceptable messaging, and I found it to be thin data with a somewhat chilling effect. Other influences abounded, but the effective knowledge transfer was disappointing in my view. There are other numbers to know than today's death record and the same mask reminder.
The author fell back on this excuse, too, but no. The existence of "bad actors" may confuse the public, but it should not distract experts from issuing clear guidance.
> but delivering a scientific message in an environment where new data is constantly streaming in is very hard
In this case, they've done the opposite - withheld the "scientific" message - on multiple occasions. The latest being about vaccinated people being able to spread the virus. That's not hard - that's straight up malicious.
It's worth noting that once that information was out, nearly every headline was misleading and half the readers got the wrong message[0].
Maybe the CDC could've gotten ahead of this by reporting clearly and honestly about the actual situation, but I wouldn't count on responsible reporting just because the information was responsibly handed out to journalists / the publications who desperately need people to click on their headlines.
Absolutely not, especially as information changes. Is it so hard to understand that new information should change the message? That varying the message could reach people the old message did not?
Their job is not to be decisive, it is to inform, and an incomplete message repeated is inferior to an explanation including what is not known for certain, and just how uncertain it is and why.
Many, many opportunities for the CDC to educate have been squandered on preaching to the choir.
Edit: Though maybe you omitted a necessary "/s" sarcasm tag in favor of scare quotes.
