Opinion: A CDC veteran asks: Why is the agency ‘sitting on the sidelines’ in the fight against Covid-19?
The public health challenge of our generation is right in front of us. SARS-CoV-2 appears to be the Andromeda strain that public health workers fear to see emerging. After many years of working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I’m perplexed, and saddened, that the agency seems to be sitting on the sidelines for this pandemic and is not building on the accumulated skills and experience from its past.
Nobody dismisses the worsening crisis or its ability to deal a potentially deadly blow to health systems and economies around the world. Health care providers throughout the U.S., emulating those in other countries, are improvising protective equipment. Bandanas are the new N95 face masks. Clinicians and other providers wait days or weeks to get the results of nasal swabs collected at great risk from patients suspected to have Covid-19. From nurseries to universities, from small businesses to large corporations, nearly everybody is, or likely will soon be, quarantined, locked down, and rightfully scared.
