Your Local Epidemiologist

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sure some of you already know about this, but for the benefit of others who might not...

Lately I've been reading Your Local Epidemiologist's newsletter, and even though she is in no way local to me (she's in the U.S.), I've found it to be comforting reading. Sometimes because she knows a lot of stuff I don't know and explains it well to a non-expert audience because that is her role here! But sometimes because she addresses or even shares concerns that I have. Like in her most recent newsletter, about the CDC's new advice that's going to lead many people in the U.S. to abandon masks altogether.

I also didn’t appreciate a few places where the guidance said, “If you are immunocompromised or high risk for severe disease… talk to your healthcare provider”. So, this framework isn’t public health guidance. This is individual-level guidance and only for certain individuals. The CDC is THE public health leader and really needs to lead that way. As a boosted individual, I know my individual risk is very, very low. But I also understand that other people’s risks are high. I would like guidance on how to adequately contribute to society for these folks’ benefit too (not just until they show up at the hospital).

Comments

[redbird]

Part of what worries me about this is that the CDC is saying that even immune-compromised people, and their households, don't need to mask in a lot of places. Instead, they want me to be prepared to take a rapid test if I'm exposed, and to ask my doctor for antivirals and other treatment if we do get sick.

I think I know what my doctor would say if I asked her "the CDC thinks I don't need to mask here, and should ask you about Boston. What's your advice?" But I and my partners aren't looking for permission to take our masks off, we're trying to figure out how to keep ourselves safe.

[cosmolinguist]

I and my partners aren't looking for permission to take our masks off, we're trying to figure out how to keep ourselves safe.

This is the thing! Not everyone is desperate to take their masks off and I think it's weird and bad that we've ended up with that starting assumption. Of course tests and antivirals absolutely should be available to you, but they can be as well as masks, rather than instead of!

[recently_folded]

The whole focus of CDC advice is really aimed at making sure there is a hospital bed for you to die in, not to keep you from dying. Which means, business focused, not public health. And sort of follows on Walensky's (head of CDC) earlier comment that it was "encouraging" that the immunocompromised would be the ones to die.

I've been reading YLE for some time now having stumbled across a reference to her by one of the real public health professionals I follow on twitter. Definitely the best, most readable information access.