CDC Needs to Produce a Pandemic Response Report
Politicians shouldn't be making comments about policies based on vibes.
Yahoo News Senior White House Correspondent Alexander Nazaryan just tweeted that Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman made a remarkable comment about extended pandemic school closures at a congressional hearing:
There is currently no reliable evidence suggesting that America’s extended school closures — some of the longest in the rich world — reduced morbidity and mortality from Covid-19. Bowman, however, is a left-wing Democrat and there is a discourse on the U.S. Left that lengthy school closures were justified by the pandemic.
While European public health agencies have produced reports assessing the impact of school closures on Covid-19 transmission, the U.S. CDC has not. Elected officials need accurate information and data about the efficacy of the non-pharmaceutical interventions deployed around the country in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19.
With CDC Director Mandy Cohen acknowledging a crisis of trust in her agency, it is essential that CDC produce reliable and trustworthy analysis of the efficacy of NPIs, including school closures, social distancing guidelines, masks, business closures, and travel restrictions. An exhaustive report on these measures would allow politicians to make data-informed comments about their impact on society. Civil society, academics, journalists, and the public would also benefit.
The CDC must get to work on this report as quickly as possible. Our elected officials can’t govern based on vibes and pre-prints passed around on Twitter. Such a report could even ultimately help to inform the work of a bipartisan congressional commission on the pandemic response.