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Multiple concerns about new @CDCgov pandemic monitoring service, given reporting that this team has been operating informally since December. Analogy is supposed to be @NWS. @DCDoc33/1516368751528136709Permalink On twitter.com
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1. This signals a commitment to keep the lights on in COVID monitoring, but will funds be appropriated to do so? 1a. Will we nationalize our highly uneven network of wastewater monitoring?On twitter.com
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1b. Will we create a free phone number and website to record the results of at-home tests? (Like the UK has until last month) nytimes.com/2022/04/02/health/covid-testing-uk-denmark.htmlPermalink On twitter.com
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1c. Will we replace the surveillance capacity provided by public mass testing sites? Will we compensate for the data provided by free tests jiw that the uninsured are being charged for them? nytimes.com/2022/04/14/health/covid-cases-tracking.htmlPermalink On twitter.com
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1d. Will we stand up a desperately needed but costly sample of people who are regularly tested to monitor prevalence levels?Permalink On twitter.com
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2. Will this team be scientifically independent of political pressures in reporting? Or will it's data and advice be shifted to suit the political agenda?Permalink On twitter.com
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2a. The @CDCDirector has openly spoken of being motivated by economic and policy concerns in recent months. @kaitlancollins/1476176642250842114?t=URbvAl-Y7uy9h4ZIY6PKiw&s=19Permalink On twitter.com
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2b. The @CDCDirector has referred to masks, basically an umbrella in this analogy, as "the scarlet letter" of the pandemic. Will her new team feel empowered to recommend them?Permalink On twitter.com
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2c. Unlike the weather, the pandemic environment is shaped by our collective behavior. Is the team empowered to recommend collective behavior changes.Permalink On twitter.com
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3. If this team was operating behind the scenes during Omicron, that's a bad sign. The singular messaging focus on severity (lower) versus transmissibilty (higher) was a prediction and messaging failure.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's like talking about hurricane wind speed but not size and storm surge.Permalink On twitter.com
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3a. The CDC called for no major new precautions during Omicron. People infected their families over the holidays. Is this a preview of the new service?Permalink On twitter.com
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3b. Unlike during the Delta, CDC messaging emphasized mildness, skepticism about hospitalization and death, optimism about "peaking." Accordingly, vaccination rates never surged. Wasn't that a failure?Permalink On twitter.com
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4. Nominally, this team is supposed to enable the new "individual choice" phase of the pandemic. But if metrics and advice are politicized, the government could play down risks, thereby undercutting protections further.Permalink On twitter.com
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4a. Trust has been profoundly eroded by the past quarters' decisions and public statements. Should this team really be within the CDC at all? Shouldn't it have independent oversight analogous to ACIP? @guardian/1510603641534701570?t=YlaTqXNn4i4tsU0m8CCoTw&s=19Permalink On twitter.com
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If the "weather service" of the pandemic is not truly independent, supplied with new monitoring tools, and empowered to issue severe storm alerts from Day 1 (with a major storm brewing in the Northeast), it could actually get in the way of timely advice.Permalink On twitter.com
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Follow-up/5. Is someone on this national pandemic service explaining to the White House the relationship between cases and hospitalizations under Omicron? BA.2 isn't the same mystery as BA.1.Permalink On twitter.com
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6. How will this service incorporate evidence from other countries on New variants?Permalink On twitter.com
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6a. And given that it has 9 staffers at the moment, can it at least circulate foreign analytical reports like these? @kallmemeg/1494100170195312646?t=_OxqVZAQb25V1d7Fz-ecWA&s=19 @EdTubb/1512845118323281921?t=_OxqVZAQb25V1d7Fz-ecWA&s=19Permalink On twitter.com