Vittert: CDC admits its failures, but where’s the apology?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is seen during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss the federal government’s response and future planning for COVID-19 on Thursday, June 16, 2022. (Greg Nash/The Hill)
Testing on staging11
(NewsNation) — The Center for Disease Control has finally admitted failure.
“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky while announcing a CDC reorganization Wednesday.
Walensky’s statement is admirable, but it’s an acknowledgement of only half of the problem.
Not only did the CDC fail, but anybody who disagreed over the past 2.5 years got labeled a tin hat-wearing, disinformation-loving, crazy person. That might be a bigger problem.
“My goal is a new, public health, action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication and timeliness,” Walensky continued.
Of course, that statement is also half a statement. The other half is, “Please don’t fire me.”
We could do a whole show on the CDC’s and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s failures over the pandemic.
But let’s just do a quick recap of the things science told us that proved wrong:
- Feb. 2020: Don’t need a mask
- Mar. 2020: Wear a mask
- May 2021: Vaxxed don’t need mask
- July 2021: Mask mandates for all return
- Aug. 2021: Everyone needs booster
- Sept. 2021: CDC approves boosters for some
I know what you are thinking. What about shutting down schools, which did more harm than good? What about masks for kids that made no sense? What about, what about, what about. … As I said, we could do a whole show.
Again, we have nothing personally against Walensky. It’s not getting things wrong, it’s the arrogance after getting so many things wrong.
“Attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science, because all of the things that I have spoken about consistently from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science,” Fauci once said.
At least Walensky admits the massive failure. But still no apology to all of us who dared ask questions. It’s OK, we have thick skin. Asking questions is our job.
So here is a new question: Why aren’t things getting any better?
Today we learned the monkeypox vaccine maker can’t meet increased demand for shots. We don’t have time to go through the monkeypox screwups, but here is a short reminder:
- May 7: 1st case reported in non-endemic country (U.K.)
- May 20: 1st case reported in the U.S.
- May 23: Biden doesn’t believe in quarantine to stop spread in U.S.
- June 10: U.S. purchases 500k vaccines
- July 5: 146 U.S. cases
- July 26: U.S. is the country with the most cases
- July 27: 981 cases
- July 30: NYC declares public health emergency
- Aug. 4: U.S. declares public health emergency
- Today: 12,689 cases
Let’s go back to the good old days in late May when it wasn’t a risk. President Biden didn’t want to do a quarantine and the CDC said don’t worry.
Today, we have more than 12,000 known cases and testing remains a problem.
Follow me here. The first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is admitting we are powerless over alcohol, and that our lives had become unmanageable.
Is it possible Walensky and Fauci were and are drunk on power and their own TV clips?
Walensky just admitted it.