The Biden administration’s CDC has been, I think, consistently too cautious and optimistic in their efforts to control covid and this is at least partly because there is only so much the public is willing to do.
CDC director Walensky: the new covid restrictions “really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate.” The CDC is being blamed for not adopting recommendations the public is unwilling to carry out. I am reminded of the introduction of seat belt customs and laws. It took a generation to go from “seat belts save lives” and “we will put seat belts in every new car” to the laws which mandate the wearing of seat belts. I find it hard to imagine ways by which the CDC could get the public to undertake more stringent Covid precautions – it is hard enough to get people to to comply with even inadequate practices.
It is an expression of a flaw in our national character that we want the CDC to order us to do what we are not as a nation willing to do. As a nation, the USA is not willing to confront its shadow, the parts of itself that it does not want to know. The Trump administration was able to take advantage of this, and got and is still getting a pass from our news media, very much to our nation’s shame.
2 comments:
Another blogger was upset that CDC does not make pronouncements based on absolute science. 1. There is no absolute science 2. CDC as you point out makes Public Health Policy and can only go so far. They have already told us what we ought to do and that is as good as it gets.
Happy New Year, Raven
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