In more bad news for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a new survey shows that public confidence has badly eroded. In what used to the be the nation’s premier health authority, trust has badly broken down since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.
According to the study produced by the RAND Corporation, there has been a “significant and substantial” loss of trust in the CDC. The worst results are coming from Americans who were likely to have supported former President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election.
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RAND’s found that “Trust among respondents who intended to vote for someone other than Biden in the 2020 Presidential election or among those who did not intend to vote at all fell even further, suggesting that views of the CDC are now strongly politicized.”
One would be hard-pressed to find a federal agency that has been so inconsistent in terms of the COVID response. Nevertheless, the CDC has been all over the map on everything from masks, lockdowns, social distancing, and the appointment of Rochelle Walensky as the agency’s new leader. What was already a dismal performance dramatically worsened under Joe Biden’s new pick.
Walensky recently deviated from the CDC’s primary mission of protecting public health to go full-blown social justice. She claimed that racism is a, “serious public health threat” that “affects the health of our entire nation”. This might be an example of why so many have come to believe that the agency has become highly politicized and thus lost faith in it.
Racism is a serious public health threat. The new CDC initiative is not just about the color of your skin but also about where you live, work, pray, & where your children play. All of these things feed into people’s health and their opportunities for health. https://t.co/hXWnqtqsei
— Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) April 8, 2021
According to an official statement from Walensky: “What we know is this: racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans. As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation. Racism is not just the discrimination against one group based on the color of their skin or their race or ethnicity, but the structural barriers that impact racial and ethnic groups differently to influence where a person lives, where they work, where their children play, and where they gather in community”.
She added, “As the nation’s leading public health agency, CDC has a critical role to play to address the impact of racism on public health”.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: “Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.” pic.twitter.com/9W1SHecSEm
— The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021
Walensky’s early performance has been nothing short of disastrous for the Biden administration. They’re struggling to live up to the campaign promises that they are better suited to manage the pandemic than former President Donald J. Trump. Her bizarre remarks that the nation was facing “impending doom” shows exactly how well equipped they are.
So did going on The Rachel Maddow Show and claiming that: “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick”. She also said that, “it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data“.
That resulted in a rebuke from her own agency when the CDC contradicted her in remarks to the New York Times. “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview,” said an agency spokesperson. They added, “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence”.
The agency is not only seen as politicized but has often been flat-out wrong, further compounding their credibility problems. Walensky’s shooting-from-the-hip on vaccine effectiveness is not a good look for them.
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RAND also delivered the bad news that, “The Biden administration will have an uphill battle in rehabilitating trust in the CDC at this critical junction in the pandemic response. A key challenge will be to identify people who will be viewed as trusted messengers regarding the vaccine and public health policies during the pandemic, and not just among the groups that previously expressed mistrust”.
It’s difficult to see how the CDC (like the FBI, DOJ, and CIA) are going to be able to convince half of the country that they are honest servants of the public interest anytime soon. Especially with the weaponizing of COVID by Democrats to advance their political agenda.
