The Pandemic Blog

The Times ran a disturbing article today about the White House pressure campaign on the CDC this summer to modify the guidance they were putting out about reopening schools. They were trying to get the CDC to play down the risks and accentuate the benefits of reopening. Of course, this isn’t exactly a secret, since it was fairly clear they were doing that this summer – but it’s still amazing to see this confirmed in black and white. What I find most amazing though, is the fact that Dr. Deborah Birx took an active role in this process. She asked Dr. Redfield to include in the introduction to the guidance a quote from a little-known agency within DHS to the effect that “very few reports of children being the primary source of Covid-19 transmission among family members have emerged”. It also asserted that children who were asymptomatic “are unlikely to spread the virus.” The former statement was misleading, given that the science still isn’t definitive on that topic either way. And

Leana Wen, a physician and former public health commissioner for Baltimore, wrote another great op-ed piece for the Post today entitled “We’ve reached 200,000 deaths. Our response has gotten even worse than it was at 100,000.” It makes the stark point: By the most important measures of public health, we’re doing worse on a national scale than we were in late May, when the US passed 100,000 Covid deaths. Here are some of her points: “In late May, we had about 20,000 new infections per day. Now we are at double that, with  around 40,000  new daily infections. This is a high baseline to have entering the fall and winter, when the combination of quarantine fatigue and cold weather could drive people to congregate indoors and substantially increase transmission.” “In addition, restrictions keep getting lifted, even in states with surging infections. The nearly 2  million  students returning for in-person instruction will surely lead to more outbreaks, as some college towns are already