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“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [last] Tuesday explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations [from 10 days to 5], and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults. The CDC also maintained that, for people who catch COVID-19, testing is not required to emerge from five days of isolation — despite hints from other federal officials that the agency was reconsidering that.” AP News
“The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a calculated gamble [last] Friday as she sought to assume greater control over confused public health messaging about the coronavirus as the pandemic enters its third year. Rochelle Walensky held her first solo covid-19 news conference since becoming the chief of the public health agency nearly a year ago, vowing that it would be ‘the first of many.’” Washington Post
Many on both sides criticize the administration for a lack of transparency and available tests:
“The reduction makes some sense: In recent weeks, a number of public health leaders have suggested that 10 days of isolation was excessive, especially for the vaccinated, and that the wait time could perhaps be cut by half given a negative test. Other countries have taken a similar approach; in England, for instance, individuals only have to isolate for seven days if they come up negative on consecutive rapid antigen tests. The key in those arguments and policies, though, is the negative test. The CDC’s new guidance, in contrast, does not recommend a test before exiting isolation…
“Given how weak the CDC’s arguments are, it’s hard not to suspect that the real reason it opted not to recommend taking a rapid antigen test is that the kits are simply too hard to find in the U.S. right now. Walensky has denied this: ‘This really had nothing to do with supply. It had everything to do with knowing what to do with the information when we got it,’ she told CBS. But it makes vastly more sense than the official explanation, which is that U.S. health authorities have decided every other country is wrong and rapid testing just isn’t that useful for figuring out whether someone might still be capable of spreading the plague after five days at home.”
Jordan Weissmann, Slate
“This is not just a ‘messaging’ issue. It’s a performance issue. The CDC has failed to produce the tests needed to manage variant waves despite a year of promises from the Biden administration that they would prioritize production. The CDC changes its guidances not on ‘fast-moving science’ but quite obviously in reaction to the political environment. When they haven’t offered ‘noble lies,’ they have taken their eyes off the ball in data management that could offer real-time assessments of variant-wave impacts.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
Other opinions below.
“The new guidelines will reduce economic and social disruption and shouldn’t endanger public health, though they won’t eliminate the risk of transmission by people who follow them. Government’s job is to manage public-health risks as best it can while allowing society and the economy to function. It can never eliminate all health risks…
“Walensky told the Washington Post on Tuesday that the agency revised its guidelines because there ‘were starting to be limitations in society’ due to the extended worker quarantines. She added: ‘This guidance is only as good as society’s willingness to follow it.’ Translation: CDC’s previous guidelines were becoming unsustainable, like government lockdowns. Americans are ignoring them because they’re too onerous…
“This has upset some of the usual public-health sages whose default is always government coercion. One told the Washington Post that the new CDC guidelines do ‘not seem to be based on science and data and what’s best for the public unless they’re accounting for the complete breakdown of society.’ If government did what these experts want, society and the economy would break down.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“For many high-risk Americans, it’s hard to get a COVID test. Meanwhile, millions of tests are being used on the lowest-risk population on earth—immunized, young, healthy students. At Princeton University, students get tested twice a week – three times if they play a sport. The hyper-testing isn’t just in the Ivy League. It’s rampant at many of the more than 1,000 U.S. colleges where vaccination is mandatory… Why are [we] using so many tests on the lowest risk segment of our population?…
“For the vast majority of Americans, the overly complex CDC guidance should be replaced with a simple message of common sense: If you’ve been exposed, keep your distance. If you’re near anyone vulnerable, be careful, and if you’re sick, stay home. We are dealing with a far less dangerous omicron variant and growing population immunity is helping to protect against severe illness. Not everyone needs to get tested… even with a scarce testing supply, public health officials continue recommending widespread testing as if tests are unlimited. They need to pivot and put forth recommendations for selective testing.”
Dr. Marty Makary, Fox News
“In a sane, well-governed country, it’d be a top bipartisan priority post-pandemic to either reorganize [the CDC] or replace it with something actually capable of issuing useful public health guidance. The fact that it’s failed for two years running, once under a Republican administration and then again under a Democratic administration, is evidence that the flaws here are institutional and not political.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air
“It’s true that, on average, SARS-CoV-2 contagiousness does tend to peak fairly early on in infection, right around the time symptoms start (if they do at all), before dropping off precipitously. Past day five, most people don’t seem to carry enough virus to reliably spread it to others. But that’s a coarse population trend, and problematic to apply at the individual level, where there will be dizzying diversity… One study estimates that roughly 30 percent of people may remain infectious after day five…
“A safe approach to shortened isolations is still achievable, experts told me, but they’d like to see at least two huge amendments to the CDC’s menu of options: a vaccination clause, and a testing requirement, both of which could lower the chances that someone peaces out of isolation prematurely.”
Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic
“Reading between the lines, it sounds a whole lot like an agency exhausted from screaming into the wind… The revised guidelines might not feel off-putting at all if it weren’t for how little anything else has shifted. The message—from the CDC, from Congress, from President Joe Biden himself—is that in the endless pandemic, it’s time to find ways for the disease to disrupt daily life less…
“This is certainly reasonable enough. But put against the failure to offer paid leave to all or secure enough tests for an entirely foreseeable surge, this attitude feels faintly ridiculous. There are a lot of ways to facilitate normalcy and support the economy during a surge. But making sure infected flight attendants can return to Delta after [just a] few days is not particularly convincing—or safe.”
Molly Osberg, New Republic
Some reiterate that “A pandemic involving a novel coronavirus, including a series of distinct variants with different fatality rates and levels of contagiousness, will inevitably produce a high degree of uncertainty among doctors and epidemiologists. At the same time, public health professionals tasked with communicating to the country how best to respond to the risk at any given moment in the pandemic understandably feel like they need to speak with authority and simplicity to be taken seriously. The tension between those poles — uncertainty in a fluid situation vs. an aspiration to authority and simplicity — is bound to produce mixed messaging and even, at times, the appearance of incompetence…
“Critics aren't wrong to note when public health experts make mistakes or contradict themselves. But they might spend somewhat less time playing ‘gotcha’ and somewhat more time showing understanding of the difficult situation these professionals are in, attempting to save lives in a sprawling, chaotic nation of 330 million people that's already badly polarized and disinclined to defer to authority of any kind. The last thing America needs is another, deeper cycle of institutional delegitimation.”
Damon Linker, The Week
