CDC implies ‘curve’ is flattened, while experts admit new guidance follows social norms

By LINDA BOYLE

Has the curve finally been flattened? Not exactly. After four years of warning Americans to stay away from work and public places, and gradually decreasing the isolation time from 12 days to 10 days, then to five days if you tested positive for Covid, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its guidelines last week.

Now, the CDC says, you should stay home until free of fever without taking medication for 24 hours. However, the CDC says you still need to take more precautions for the following five days, ensuring you have improved ventilation, get that good old mask out of storage and mask up, and limit contact with others.  

The CDC has decided to use the same standards for Covid as it recommends for all other respiratory viral illnesses to include RSV and flu viruses.  

“Covid-19 is still an important public health threat, but it is not the emergency that it once was,” said Dr. Brendan Jackson, who leads the respiratory virus response for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, on Friday. And its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other [respiratory viral] illnesses, including influenza and RSV.” 

This change in policy is the first revision of coronavirus guidelines since 2021. And these changed guidelines are for us regular folks, not for hospitals or nursing homes. Those facilities still have their own rules.

Why the change? Was there a ton of research data to explain this shift in policy? Or was it just another SWAG (scientific wild a** guess)?  

The CDC quoted some statistics to justify the change. CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said that by now, most of the U.S. population has some type of immunity to Covid.

In 2021, there were more than 2.5 million hospitalizations for Covid-19. In 2023 that number dropped 60% to 900,000.

In 2021, there were 450,00 deaths attributed to Covid-19. In 2023 that number dropped 83% to about 75,000 deaths.

Covid was the third leading cause of deaths in the U.S. in both 2022 and 2021. In 2023, Covid dropped to number 10 as a leading cause of death.

Covid deaths have plunged. A Covid-19 death is defined as one where the disease is listed on the death certificate as an underlying or contributing cause of death.

That is eye-opening data. Yet, some of the top doctors also made some interesting comments.  

Dr. Marcis Plescia, Chief Medical Officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers, said his board members felt it was time to make the change, aligning Covid with other respiratory illnesses.  

“It’s in step of where we need to be going and where our society is going anyway,” she said.

Dr. Anand Parekh, Chief Medical Advisor for the Bipartisan Policy Center, also stated the change was needed because “most members of the public likely aren’t following the previous isolation guidelines anyway.” 

In other words, the CDC made the change because people weren’t following the guidance. Americans were tired of the restrictions.  

Or perhaps it simply was because Oregon and California had recently made the same changes. The dominos were falling.

Jeff Childers observed in Coffee and Covid, “Why now? It’s election season.” 

This type of commentary would have him banned from social media just a few years ago. Covid has morphed from a “civilization-destroying virus” that justified massive lockdowns that destroyed the economy, to something treated like the flu.  It’s a good time to announce victory.  

True to form, however, the CDC reminds you to still take Covid vaccinations. It wants you to know the disease is still scary. They still have a huge inventory of “vaccines” to get into people’s arms.  

Over 65 years old? You now need those jabs every four months, CDC says, even though research has proven those antibodies are still there years later. There is a large inventory of vaccines still on the government’s shelf!

It’s no wonder 25% of Americans don’t trust the CDC.

The trust deficit is because the CDC continues to pick and choose the talking points it wants you to believe. When it changes guidance, it goes back to its original talking points to keep some Americans very afraid: “Treat it like the flu but it is still dangerous, and you need those jabs.”  

Sure, the virus has morphed. But it did so long time ago. Other countries loosened these restrictions back in 2022.  

It is just a good time now to make that announcement.

Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance.