After two years of refusing to consider testing as an effective way to curb the spread of Covid, the anti-alcohol Centers for Disease Control & Prevention got around to saying that school children could be in a classroom as long as they tested negative for Covid.
This moment of clarity might be catching at CDC’s Atlanta headquarters. The Associated Press quoted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s top medical advisor, as saying the CDC is “considering including the negative test as part of its guidance after getting significant “pushback” on its updated recommendations which shortened the isolation requirements for people infected with Covid to five days from 10.
The publicly stated intention is to avoid the sort of lockdowns that wrecked the on-premise food and beverage business last year.
Unfortunately, no one from President Biden on down appears to have asked a fundamental question: Why were there more Covid cases and deaths during President Biden’s first year in office than there were in former President Trump’s final year. And why were officials surprised by the surge in cases and didn’t seem to know where the virus would strike next?
The answers to those questions is simple: Covid is not the flu. Covid is spread by people with no visible signs of the disease. Ergo, if you want to control the spread, you have to test people with no visible signs of the disease.
But until the last few days, the Biden Administration has only chanted the magical incantation, “vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.” The Covid vaccines have varying amounts of effectiveness, depending upon maker, how long a person has been vaccinated, etc. — and are totally ineffective in preventing the disease in the 22% of the population who have not had even one shot.
We’re encouraged that CDC has finally awakened, at least slightly, to the value of testing asymptomatic people. But it’s a dollar short and a day too late: In the last 30 days there has been 820,255 deaths from Covid and 53,795,407 total cases.
Both Trump and Biden failed in protecting America from Covid. Biden’s failure was worse.