6 ms·

The CDC Needs to Stop Confusing the Public

50 points by mitchbob 5y ago

doggodaddo78 5y ago
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.
newbamboo 5y ago
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.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  I think they've already burned more bridges down that road than we realize. I'm expecting 2022 to be a reckoning.
- thelastknowngod 5y ago
  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.
  - krona 5y ago
    > dealing with an entirely new situation for our species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics It's not entirely new, is it?
  - dtjb 5y ago
    The very presence of their agency implies that we're not exactly in new territory here.
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    lookup what CDC, the initials stand for. They have failed miserably both at controlling the spread of the disease and informing the public. Instead of focusing on what they should be doing they are playing the politics and the CYA game. Disgusting.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    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.
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    I agree they have tough situation but that’s time to maybe scale back the scope of their purview. First, do no harm. That should apply to the CDC too. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/cdc-covid-guidelines.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/cdc-covid-guideli...
wombatmobile 5y ago
> So remember, C.D.C.: Be first, be right and be credible. The conditions may not be ideal, but that’s the job. Those are ideals, and they aren't always compatible, available, or attainable.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  Remember programmers, write code that's correct, with no bugs, and with optimal performance. That's the job.
  - cnity 5y ago
    Remember NYT, write articles that are accurate, never require edits, and hold up infinitely far into the future. That's the job.
    - jjcxxzzzs 5y ago
      I mean at this point[0] if they could just avoid completely making shit up they'd be doing a better job 0: some examples; some of these are NYT https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Every day the anti-vaxxers get more ammunition.
- everdrive 5y ago
  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.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    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.
    - everdrive 5y ago
      That's a really fair point, sorry for misunderstanding you. I agree: government incompetence can enable people with strange ideas.
- cdclifars 5y ago
  They could just stop lying. Fact: Masks don't do anything. Fauci said so himself on video. Fact: Fauci funded the Wuhan Lab for gain-of-function research. Fauci said so himself on video.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  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.
- preordained 5y ago
  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.
cdclifars 5y ago
The CDC has no legal authority to do anything. Neither do any of these county "health departments". Most of the measures that were instituted last March took a full year to get thrown out by the courts (ex: Newsom's church banning in California). People don't understand that this is up to the courts but the courts can take a very long time do address it and during that time these politicians pull the wool over the eyes of the public.
refurb 5y ago
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.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  They could just choose to stop "changing their minds" so often and just speak less and "more decisively."
  - techbio 5y ago
    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.
    - foolinaround 5y ago
      transparency on what new information was received that is now changing the messaging.
      - techbio 5y ago
        Yeah sure, but I'm not sure accountability for who knew what and when is the concern here. Maybe you are on to something? I haven't the faintest.
        foolinaround 5y ago
caseyw 5y ago
Is there a paywall free version?
- DHPersonal 5y ago
  I’ve come across enough NYTimes articles on this site to find a subscription helpful. Here’s a link to a $4 a month offer: https://www.nytimes.com/subscription https://www.nytimes.com/subscription
  - jmugan 5y ago
    Justified or not, I'm more afraid of all the horror stories that say you can't unsubscribe than the $4 a month.
    - DHPersonal 5y ago
      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.
trdtaylor1 5y ago
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).
- blagie 5y ago
  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.
tckerr 5y ago
Not trying to be difficult but I suspect this article is not readable to the majority of HN users since it requires a subscription. I wasn't able to view it in chrome (+incognito). Is there any way for us to view the content?
thesausageking 5y ago
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.
- throwaway09223 5y ago
  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).
  - blagie 5y ago
    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.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    If I ask the CDC whether I should wear a mask to the grocery store today, what would you consider a clear but politics-free response to that question?
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      "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."
      - 5y ago
dsr_ 5y ago
The point of having a trustworthy expert institution is that they have to be experts and they have to be trustworthy. The CDC has become untrustworthy because they have allowed/been forced to let politics override science. It doesn't help that there are propaganda institutions shouting louder than the scientists, either. I don't have an answer here, just an observation of the problem.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  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.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > ban all interpersonal interaction for several months, stop all transportation, and put locks on everybody's doors so they can't leave their houses But then everybody starves to death. And anything less won't actually eradicate the virus, as we've seen.
    - hannasanarion 5y ago
      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.
    - doggodaddo78 5y ago
      I can go for 70 days without any food and I have a good 40 days supply at home. If we did something like this or what China did in the first place, it would've died out. Relying on individual responsibility inexorably leads to a Tragedy of the Commons. Individuals can never be trusted.
nimbius 5y ago
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.
- the8472 5y ago
  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: https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://i.imgur.com/lGXf03w.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lGXf03w.jpg 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.
  - makomk 5y ago
    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.
jsight 5y ago
https://archive.is/u4D8H https://archive.is/u4D8H
temptemptemp111 5y ago
I can't wait until more HN commenters get the 2nd & 3rd rounds of vaccines.
makomk 5y ago
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.
- newbamboo 5y ago
  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.
h2odragon 5y ago
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.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  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.
saxman001 5y ago
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.
- TheParkShark 5y ago
  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.
vanattab 5y ago
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...
- pyronik19 5y ago
  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.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Yup all they had to do was say "we think X, we don't know everything, our recommendations will change in the future" in front of every pronouncement
fallingknife 5y ago
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.
- TheParkShark 5y ago
  China also lied and is still hiding data. Taking the CCP at face value Jan 2020-Mar 2020 proved to be a costly mistake.
  - tzs 5y ago
    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.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
underseacables 5y ago
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.
helen___keller 5y ago
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.
- somebodynew 5y ago
  I would nominate the National Park Service as a potential candidate for a federal agency with both public awareness and bipartisan approval.
  - helen___keller 5y ago
    awareness but not relevance. This is similar to the CDC pre-pandemic: oh yeah they're out there stopping ebola or something.
    - TheParkShark 5y ago
      They’re out there in many places going against the Mexican Cartels. Just because you’re not aware doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
      - helen___keller 5y ago
        And the CDC was out there fighting ebola before the pandemic
- sauwan 5y ago
  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.

50 points by mitchbob 5y ago

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.

newbamboo 5y ago

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.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
I think they've already burned more bridges down that road than we realize. I'm expecting 2022 to be a reckoning.
thelastknowngod 5y ago
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.
- krona 5y ago
  > dealing with an entirely new situation for our species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics It's not entirely new, is it?
- dtjb 5y ago
  The very presence of their agency implies that we're not exactly in new territory here.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  lookup what CDC, the initials stand for. They have failed miserably both at controlling the spread of the disease and informing the public. Instead of focusing on what they should be doing they are playing the politics and the CYA game. Disgusting.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  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.
- newbamboo 5y ago
  I agree they have tough situation but that’s time to maybe scale back the scope of their purview. First, do no harm. That should apply to the CDC too. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/cdc-covid-guidelines.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/cdc-covid-guideli...

wombatmobile 5y ago

> So remember, C.D.C.: Be first, be right and be credible. The conditions may not be ideal, but that’s the job. Those are ideals, and they aren't always compatible, available, or attainable.

helen___keller 5y ago
Remember programmers, write code that's correct, with no bugs, and with optimal performance. That's the job.
- cnity 5y ago
  Remember NYT, write articles that are accurate, never require edits, and hold up infinitely far into the future. That's the job.
  - jjcxxzzzs 5y ago
    I mean at this point[0] if they could just avoid completely making shit up they'd be doing a better job 0: some examples; some of these are NYT https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Every day the anti-vaxxers get more ammunition.

everdrive 5y ago
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.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  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.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    That's a really fair point, sorry for misunderstanding you. I agree: government incompetence can enable people with strange ideas.
cdclifars 5y ago
They could just stop lying. Fact: Masks don't do anything. Fauci said so himself on video. Fact: Fauci funded the Wuhan Lab for gain-of-function research. Fauci said so himself on video.
happytoexplain 5y ago
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.
preordained 5y ago
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.

cdclifars 5y ago

The CDC has no legal authority to do anything. Neither do any of these county "health departments". Most of the measures that were instituted last March took a full year to get thrown out by the courts (ex: Newsom's church banning in California). People don't understand that this is up to the courts but the courts can take a very long time do address it and during that time these politicians pull the wool over the eyes of the public.

refurb 5y ago

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.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
They could just choose to stop "changing their minds" so often and just speak less and "more decisively."
- techbio 5y ago
  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.
  - foolinaround 5y ago
    transparency on what new information was received that is now changing the messaging.
    - techbio 5y ago
      Yeah sure, but I'm not sure accountability for who knew what and when is the concern here. Maybe you are on to something? I haven't the faintest.
      - foolinaround 5y ago

caseyw 5y ago

Is there a paywall free version?

DHPersonal 5y ago
I’ve come across enough NYTimes articles on this site to find a subscription helpful. Here’s a link to a $4 a month offer: https://www.nytimes.com/subscription https://www.nytimes.com/subscription
- jmugan 5y ago
  Justified or not, I'm more afraid of all the horror stories that say you can't unsubscribe than the $4 a month.
  - DHPersonal 5y ago
    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.

trdtaylor1 5y ago

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).

blagie 5y ago
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.

tckerr 5y ago

Not trying to be difficult but I suspect this article is not readable to the majority of HN users since it requires a subscription. I wasn't able to view it in chrome (+incognito). Is there any way for us to view the content?

thesausageking 5y ago

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.

throwaway09223 5y ago
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).
- blagie 5y ago
  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.
- michaelt 5y ago
  If I ask the CDC whether I should wear a mask to the grocery store today, what would you consider a clear but politics-free response to that question?
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    "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."
    - 5y ago

dsr_ 5y ago

The point of having a trustworthy expert institution is that they have to be experts and they have to be trustworthy. The CDC has become untrustworthy because they have allowed/been forced to let politics override science. It doesn't help that there are propaganda institutions shouting louder than the scientists, either. I don't have an answer here, just an observation of the problem.

hannasanarion 5y ago
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.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > ban all interpersonal interaction for several months, stop all transportation, and put locks on everybody's doors so they can't leave their houses But then everybody starves to death. And anything less won't actually eradicate the virus, as we've seen.
  - hannasanarion 5y ago
    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.
  - doggodaddo78 5y ago
    I can go for 70 days without any food and I have a good 40 days supply at home. If we did something like this or what China did in the first place, it would've died out. Relying on individual responsibility inexorably leads to a Tragedy of the Commons. Individuals can never be trusted.

nimbius 5y ago

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.

the8472 5y ago
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: https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://i.imgur.com/lGXf03w.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lGXf03w.jpg 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.
- makomk 5y ago
  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.

jsight 5y ago

https://archive.is/u4D8H https://archive.is/u4D8H

temptemptemp111 5y ago

I can't wait until more HN commenters get the 2nd & 3rd rounds of vaccines.

makomk 5y ago

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.

newbamboo 5y ago
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.

h2odragon 5y ago

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.

cameldrv 5y ago
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.

saxman001 5y ago

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.

TheParkShark 5y ago
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.

vanattab 5y ago

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...

pyronik19 5y ago
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.
dnautics 5y ago
Yup all they had to do was say "we think X, we don't know everything, our recommendations will change in the future" in front of every pronouncement

fallingknife 5y ago

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.

TheParkShark 5y ago
China also lied and is still hiding data. Taking the CCP at face value Jan 2020-Mar 2020 proved to be a costly mistake.
- tzs 5y ago
  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.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

underseacables 5y ago

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.

helen___keller 5y ago

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.

somebodynew 5y ago
I would nominate the National Park Service as a potential candidate for a federal agency with both public awareness and bipartisan approval.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  awareness but not relevance. This is similar to the CDC pre-pandemic: oh yeah they're out there stopping ebola or something.
  - TheParkShark 5y ago
    They’re out there in many places going against the Mexican Cartels. Just because you’re not aware doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
    - helen___keller 5y ago
      And the CDC was out there fighting ebola before the pandemic
sauwan 5y ago
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.