President Joe Biden takes his mask off to deliver remarks on COVID-19 and the economy, Thursday, July 29, 2021, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
In his attempt to coerce 75 million unvaccinated Americans, who by now are a “mélange,” President Biden is portraying them all as the same anti-science know-nothings, writes Holman W Jenkins, Jr. in the WSJ.
How Wedge Politics Works:
- It will provoke confrontations with red-state governors and old-school civil libertarians.
- It will rile up anti-vax nuts, who will be portrayed as ordinary GOPers.
- It does not faintly resemble any strategy you would adopt if your goal was to improve COVID outcomes quickly and efficiently.
Mr. Jenkins wants the media and Democrats to stop lying about the Biden administration.
The political calendar, with the midterms still a year away and 2024 three years off, is why he wanted a fast-and-dirty Afghan exit while he could still exploit his honeymoon privilege of putting all blame on his predecessors.
Where Is the CDC?
With an agency of 21,000 employees and an annual budget of $15 billion, why isn’t the CDC producing its own research? Why is the U.S. relying on information fro Israel to provide decisions on boosters. Dr. Marty Makaray in the WSJ accuses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of failig to provide the information needed to inform a sound Covid strategy.
Flying Blind with a $15 Billion Budget?
The CDC’s failure to report meaningful data has left policy makers flying blind. In the absence of good data to answer the basic questions Americans have been asking, political opinions have filled the vacuum. Strong data might have prevented much of the polarization over Covid.
Sound data from the CDC has been especially lacking on natural immunity from prior Covid infection. On Aug. 25, Israel published the most powerful and scientifically rigorous study on the subject to date. In a sample of more than 700,000 people, natural immunity was 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.
Despite this evidence, U.S. public health officials continue to dismiss natural immunity, insisting that those who have recovered from Covid must still get the vaccine. Policy makers and public health leaders, and the media voices that parrot them, are inexplicably sticking to their original hypothesis that natural immunity is fleeting, even as at least 15 studies show it lasts.
Meanwhile, employers fire workers with natural immunity who won’t get vaccinated. Schools disenroll students who won’t comply.
The CDC did put out In a study on natural immunity last month, forcefully concluding that vaccinated immunity was 2.3 times better than natural immunity. The CDC used these results to justify telling those with natural immunity to get vaccinated.
By any metric, the CDC has failed in its primary task of preparing the country for a pandemic and telling us how to reduce harm from the novel Covid pathogen.
Dr. Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is also the author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care—And How To Fix It.”
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