Enlarge / CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield. (credit score: Getty | Alex Edelman)
The CDC has been neutered, shamed, and blamed amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and international disaster. From inside missteps that bungled the nation’s rollout of diagnostic testing to blatant political interference and strong-arming on important public well being steerage, the CDC has gone from the world’s premier public well being company to a silenced, overridden, distrusted afterthought within the US response—an company stripped of its potential to gather even primary well being information from hospitals throughout a raging pandemic.
The heavy blows to the company’s repute and function have been effectively documented all through the pandemic. President Trump and his administration have brazenly undermined the company and, behind the scenes, attacked it whereas overriding knowledgeable public well being recommendation on testing, college reopening, and the dealing with of outbreaks on cruise ships, amongst different issues.
However whereas the broad strokes of the company’s undoing have been famous in actual time, a set of latest investigations and experiences affords new particulars. In a sweeping investigative report by ProPublica, three journalists retraced various occasions, digging up emails, heated exchanges, and alarm inside the company. As an example, it supplies contemporary perception into how a single CDC researcher valiantly labored to develop diagnostic checks for the novel coronavirus, solely to fumble, producing checks contaminated with genetic sequences of the virus. That contamination produced false optimistic leads to public well being labs across the nation, rendering the checks ineffective and shedding valuable time to get forward of the illness’s unfold.
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