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American Indian tribes thwarted in efforts to get coronavirus data
- mehrdadn 6y agoActual article is linked there: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-cor...
- seesawtron 6y agoIt seems to be the case of non-recognization of tribal epidemiology centers by the CDC as being public health organisations. Who makes this seemingly binary decision as to which entity falls under the "public" sector or not? Shouldn't this be already well-documented which entites fall under which jurisdiction? "The tribal epidemiology centers were originally created to coordinate public health efforts between tribes and state and federal agencies. And under the Affordable Care Act, the centers are considered public health authorities on a par with state health departments and federal agencies such as the CDC. But Abigail Echo-Hawk, the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, told POLITICO that the CDC has so far rebuffed the centers’ requests — telling her only that the data is nonpublic."
- ashtonkem 6y agoThe US government seems to recognize tribal organizations as sovereign or not based on their whims at the moment, usually to the tribes disadvantage.
- tasogare 6y agoThat’s the real systemic racism. It’s even more glaring since it happens on their land.
- 082349872349872 6y agohttps://youtu.be/rRnHx3yVuf4?t=67 https://youtu.be/rRnHx3yVuf4?t=67 The US has commendable ideals.
- redbeard0x0a 6y agoPlease don't discount other other groups experiencing systemic racism. This is another example of systemic racism, but it's not any more or less real than systemic racism against people of color.
- BasDirks 6y agoI see what you're saying, and without GP disclosing exactly what kind of systemic racism is not "true", I agree with your objection, but it might have been an unfortunate way of wording.
- JamisonM 6y agoThe problem with even having it well-documented which entities fall under which jurisdiction is that you can just change your mind and fight and lose in the courts later when it serves the purpose of delaying the inevitable outcome. It is often the case that the nation-to-nation relationship is very complex. But even where it is simple the existence of the relationship as a barrier can be exploited to the detriment of the citizenry. (IMO in Canada the courts have been getting fed up with these maneuvers and are levying large penalties in the hopes of deterring the strategy.)
- 082349872349872 6y ago"Federal Indian trust responsibility" seems to be the term of art. Like with the South Dakotan governor's opinions on tribal Covid checkpoints, I'd expect the CDC to become more cooperative after they've consulted counsel.
- y-c-o-m-b 6y agoFrom down-playing the threat of COVID-19 in the early stages to the mixed messaging on mask effectiveness and the timidly inconsistent guidelines for managing the outbreak, I've lost trust in both the WHO and the CDC. This issue only erodes that trust further. I fear the erosion in trust between the public and public health agencies is causing permanent damage in our abilities to mitigate future disasters. I have the same distrust for social services that purportedly protect kids from abuse yet turn kids over to abusive foster parents. There's zero accountability for the damage these events contribute to and if you ask the people in charge they just shrug their shoulders.
- themihai 6y agoThe health issue is complex and as such the right decisions are complex as well. I guess WHO and CDC could have issued guidelines to keep a permanent lock-down until a vaccine is found or at least until the virus is better understood but there are political, social and economic issues and WHO and CDC are in the middle of this big mess.
- fuckyah 6y agoYou are kidding right? There’s no studies that prove lockdowns are effective
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoHow did WHO downplay the threat of the virus? They've pretty consistently given good advice on how to handle the outbreak, and countries that have done the things they've emphasized (notably, test, trace and isolate) have done well.
- ericlewis 6y agoI would assume by downplay they mean: “didn’t call it a pandemic when everyone else thought it was one”
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
- docbrown 6y agoHealth data related to Native Americans is already highly undercounted and incomplete as compared to other groups. This continued surpression of their ways of living is sad to watch. When NA’s already have little trust in Western medicine, this action by the CDC will do nothing more than erode that relationship further.
- asfarley 6y agoI’m a Canadian citizen in Alberta. I made a freedom of information request for some aggregate statistics, and got a response from the agency indicating that the information wouldn’t be available for several months, allegedly due to a “high volume of requests”. From my perspective, if the information is delivered months after being relevant, it’s the same as denying the request. In general, it seems like “public institutions” don’t act like they’re beholden to the public. They act just like private institutions whose primary concern is self-preservation.
- koheripbal 6y agoIt's not like they can just take your one request and push it to the head of the line because you say it's urgent. Everyone gets their turn.
- bonchicbongenre 6y agoThat was not the original commenter's point at all. Doing things in sequence is fine. Doing things so slowly as to be useless is not.
- koheripbal 6y agoYou are assuming malicious intent in the duration of the backlog - which is not the case. FOIA requests routinely take months and/or years.