The CDC said Americans don’t need masks — but now they might.
The agency said the virus spread through “droplets” from coughs and sneezes —
but then warned about catching it from people with no symptoms, or even from
surfaces, like subway turnstiles or metal shopping carts.
America’s best scientists and
its vaunted public health agency are still learning on the job about the
coronavirus. For a terrified American public, the kaleidoscope of changing
messages has created more fear, confusion and distrust.
Scientists are used to gaining knowledge one step at a time —
and they’ve learned a lot in a hurry about a virus none of them had ever seen
before, allowing the search for treatments and vaccines to begin. But the virus
always seems one step ahead of them.
And they aren’t moving at the velocity the public craves in a
crisis of this magnitude. It only gets worse when the voices of science must
compete with the voices of politics.
And while Americans may be
used to elected officials’ spin for political gain, the inconsistencies from
trusted public health officials have left the public with an understanding
that’s muddled at best.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is an
unprecedented threat,” said former CDC Director Tom Frieden via email. “I think
that people understand that we’re learning more every day, though gaps in
understanding come partly from the mixed messaging being delivered by different
individuals, agencies and media outlets.”
When the CDC has tried to be blunt — most notably when epidemic
expert Nancy Messonnier told reporters in February that Americans should
prepare for community spread of the illness and “severe disruption” to their
lives — the White House quickly put out a competing, more reassuring message.
The CDC has since played only
a minor role in communicating with the public about the pandemic — and their
statements don’t always perfectly match up with what the White House task force
says.
“Let’s be frank,“ saidFrieden. “What Dr. Nancy Messonnier has said was exactly right, and at exactlythe right time.” He said he wished the CDC had been briefing the public “every
single day.” Instead, the leading public health agency has been shunted to the
communication sidelines.
John Auerbach, who leads the
nonpartisan organization Trust for America’s Health, said the public health
officials generally were clear about what they knew and what they didn’t. But
that wasn’t always the case with elected officials who “sometimes made
definitive statements that turn out to not be the case.”
The CDC’s own missteps on
testing hurt its standing within President Donald Trump’s circle. And the
testing delays also hampered the public health response, as the experts did not
have a handle on how far or how fast the virus was spreading.
The CDC also was not always
on message.
For instance when the White
House two weeks ago announced its social distancing campaign and urged people
not to gather in groups greater than 10, the CDC still had on its website the
prior day's recommendation to avoid groups under 50.
Just this week, CDC Director
Robert Redfield granted a rare local radio interview stressing how people with
no symptoms could still infect someone else. Earlier in the epidemic,
scientists didn’t have conclusive evidence of asymptomatic transmission and
they didn’t stress it as a risk.
That lack of visibility — the
public's inability to hear directly from the agency about what it's learning —
undermines the trust that's essential in a crisis, said former CDC acting
Director Richard Besser, who now runs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
But that doesn’t always
happen in real time.
For instance, when the White
House two weeks ago announced its social distancing campaign and urged people
not to gather in groups greater than 10, the CDC still had on its website the
day-old recommendation to avoid groups under 50.
Officials are still all over
the place on whether the public should wear masks. And if they do change the
recommendations and urge people to wear them, they’ll have to first, explain to
the public that it’s more about preventing people from spreading the virus than
catching it; second, that it doesn’t replace social distancing; and third —
contrary to what’s appearing on social media — the earlier advice was based on
the best science available then, not because the masks were in short supply.
Redfield in the radio
interview said the recommendations are being reassessed, now that there’s more
conclusive evidence about asymptomatic spread.
“We’re always criticallylooking at the new data,” Redfield said. “Is the mask something that protects
me? ... Or if I wear a mask, is it something that protects others from me?”
But U.S. Surgeon General
Jerome Adams said Tuesday on "Fox & Friends" that masks may do
more harm than good. In addition, it might create a “false sense of
security" that makes people ignore the advice about staying at least 6
feet away from others, he said.
The message about young
people not being vulnerable to serious disease also backfired, as the spring
break and Mardi Gras revelers showed. Some of them got infected and brought the
virus back home with them.
There are two bright spots as
scientists learn more. The mortality rate is probably going to be lower than
initially estimated — although the death toll may be high because so many
people are infected. And so far, it hasn’t mutated in a way that makes it more
dangerous — or harder to attack with a vaccine.
“Everyone has a hunger for
what’s going on,“ said former Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier. “If
you aren’t going to trust the CDC, FDA or the president — and in many cases you
shouldn’t — you are kind of in a bind.”
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