The Centers for Disease Politics The agency offers a mea minima culpa for its manifest Covid failures.
Regrets, Rochelle Walensky has a few, though apparently too few to specify. Amid bipartisan criticism over her agency’s bumbling virus response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said Wednesday she’ll reshuffle the bureaucratic deck with an emphasis on “action” and “equity.” Her diagnosis and prescription are both wrong.
Not much of the U.S. government works well these days, but the CDC once had a reputation for excellence. Covid blew that up. Its bureaucracy, with 11,000 employees and some two dozen divisions, impeded a rapid and effective response to the virus.
One problem is that bureaucracies always seek to expand their power and reach, often at the expense of their core mission. The CDC is no exception as it has sought to address social and environmental issues that are better left to the states or other agencies. Meantime, it has failed in its core responsibility, which is to track diseases, collect data to inform decision-making, and deploy resources to support local public-health responses.
At the start of the pandemic when public officials were blind to the virus spread, CDC employees failed to follow standard lab operating procedures and contaminated Covid tests. Even after the agency realized its blunders, it refused to share virus samples with private commercial labs to help develop and deploy tests.
As our contributor Scott Gottlieb explained in his book “Uncontrolled Spread,” agency scientists took a proprietary interest in their intellectual property: “Companies seeking to make the test kits described extended negotiations with the CDC that stretched for weeks as the agency made sure that the contracts protected its inventions.”
This culture of control has hamstrung the CDC’s response in other ways. During the early months of pandemic, the CDC struggled to set up technical systems to analyze and share data. Some hospitals had to fax in information. Frustrated by the CDC’s pace, Health and Humans Services Department leaders seized control of the Covid data in summer 2020.
Democrats accused the Trump Administration of politicizing the CDC, but HHS’s seizure made data more transparent. The CDC now posts more Covid data, but often late and it omits critical information. Instead of publishing raw data for outside scientists to analyze, the CDC often only releases studies that support its policies, such as mask mandates.
Politics drives many CDC decisions, including one last spring not to collect information on breakthrough Covid cases lest this show declining vaccine efficacy. Its school reopening guidance was written in part by American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten.
Most egregious was its eviction moratorium. The eviction ban was first imposed under Donald Trump, but the Biden Administration repeatedly extended it based on dubious science that purported to show it reduced the virus spread. The Supreme Court eventually ruled it illegal. The CDC’s usurpation of Congress and states continued with its illegal mask mandate on public transportation, also based on thin science.
The agency’s public guidance is often confusing. But the larger problem is that its recommendations are seemingly arbitrary and don’t acknowledge scientific uncertainty. The agency has also been slow to adjust its guidance. Last spring it was still advising the unvaccinated to wear masks outdoors.
While failing at its core responsibility, the CDC has stretched its powers and mission. Consider a CDC study in May, which attributed increased gun violence in 2020 among young, black men in part to “longstanding systemic inequities and structural racism.” Its suggested remedy: More government transfer payments.
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Dr. Walensky now plans to make the agency more “action-oriented.” But the CDC’s problem isn’t inaction. It has taken wrong and often counter-productive actions, including support for lockdowns and other government coercion. (See John Tierney nearby.)
Ms. Walensky commissioned a review of her agency in the spring, and it’s ironic that she hasn’t made it public since one criticism is the CDC’s lack of transparency. Instead she has released boiler-plate recommendations such as “promote results-based partnerships,” “translate science into practical, easy to understand policy,” and “prioritize public health communications.”
More spending is Dr. Walensky’s other proposed remedy. The agency received a 7% raise this year, but she wants more for a new office of “equity” to increase workforce diversity and improve communications with minority groups. Isn’t that what the CDC’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Office of the Associate Director for Communication already do?
It’s hard to believe the U.S. would have handled Covid worse if the CDC didn’t exist. The agency needs to shrink and focus on its central mission: Tracking and helping to stop disease.
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