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August 5, 2021 09:50 pm

The CDC Needs To Stop Confusing the Public

Dr. Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, writing at The New York Times: The C.D.C. faces three major problems. The first is reality: a sustained campaign of misinformation against vaccines and other public health measures, originating mostly with right-wing commentators and politicians, and a new media environment that has upended traditional information flows. Second, the C.D.C. is still mired in the fog of pandemic, with too little data, collected too slowly, leaving it chasing epidemic waves and trying to make sense of information from other countries. Epidemics spread exponentially, so delayed responses make problems much worse. If the response to a crisis comes after many people are already aware of it brewing, it leaves them confused and fearful if they look to the C.D.C. for guidance, and vulnerable to misinformation if they do not. Third, the agency is simply not doing a good job at what the pamphlet advises: being first, right and credible, and avoiding mixed messaging, delays and confusion. It's hard not to have sympathy for its predicament. The previous administration undermined the C.D.C., and anti-vaxxers' deliberate misinformation assault has not made the agency's job any easier. The digital public sphere operates fast and furious, and that's difficult for traditional institutions to keep up with or to counter. All this makes it even more important that the C.D.C. properly handle what's under its control. The response to the Delta variant has been too slow. Data from other countries made it clear months ago that it posed a great threat. Unfortunately, the United States already doesn't systematically collect the kind of data needed on many important indicators. Making things worse, in early May, the C.D.C. stopped tracking breakthrough infections among the vaccinated unless they were hospitalized or worse, even though the reason for continued surveillance is to see and understand changes in an outbreak as early as possible. June passed with little change in the government's response, despite multiple technical papers from Public Health England showing that the Delta variant was much more transmissible and possibly more severe and that it was able to cause more breakthrough infections among the vaccinated. Detailed contact tracing from Singapore also showed that some of the vaccinated were transmitting.

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