Study Shows Collapsing Confidence In ‘Highly Politicized’ CDC

Every institution is now rotten to the core with leftist politics…

In more bad news for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a new survey shows that that public confidence in what used to the be nation’s premier health authority has badly eroded since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

According to the study produced by the RAND Corporation, there has been a “significant and substantial” loss of trust in the CDC with the worst results coming from Americans who were likely to have supported former President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election.

RAND found that “Trust among respondents who intended to vote for someone other than Biden in the 2020 Presidential election or among those who did not intend to vote at all fell even further, suggesting that views of the CDC are now strongly politicized.”

Via RAND:

The average was roughly 0.7 points, or about a 10-percent decline from the original score. Non-Hispanic White and Hispanic respondents reported significant declines in trust, while the changes were not statistically significant for non-Hispanic Black or respondents of other races. Respondents who reported an intention to vote for Joe Biden showed a small and nonsignificant decline in trust in the CDC, while those who intended to vote for Donald Trump, vote for someone else, or not vote at all in the 2020 Presidential election showed significant and substantial declines in trust. Respondents of all ages reported similar levels of decline in trust, as did rural and urban individuals. In the end, there is remarkable consistency and convergence in reported levels of trust in the CDC across these subgroups after the declines, with the exception of the vote intention comparisons.

The convergence in trust across race or ethnicity highlights a key challenge that the CDC now faces. Lack of trust among Black Americans has been a well-publicized concern regarding the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. However, trust in the CDC did not decline significantly among Black respondents; instead, trust among non-Hispanic white and Hispanic respondents fell to the same lower level of trust that was already prevalent among Black Americans.

One would be hard-pressed to find a federal agency that has been so inconsistent in terms of the COVID response and the CDC has been all over the map on everything from masks to lockdowns to social distancing and what was already a dismal performance dramatically worsened when Joe Biden tabbed Rochelle Walensky as the agency’s new leader.

Walensky’s recent deviation from the CDC’s primary mission of protecting public health into full-blown social justice advocacy when she claimed that racism is a “serious public health threat” that “affects the health of our entire nation,” is an example of why so many have come to believe that the agency has become highly politicized.

According to an official statement from Walensky: “What we know is this: racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans. As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation. Racism is not just the discrimination against one group based on the color of their skin or their race or ethnicity, but the structural barriers that impact racial and ethnic groups differently to influence where a person lives, where they work, where their children play, and where they gather in community.”

She added; “As the nation’s leading public health agency, CDC has a critical role to play to address the impact of racism on public health.”

Further compounding the CDC’s credibility problems, the agency is not only seen as politicized but has often been wrong.

Walensky’s early performance has been nothing short of disastrous as the Biden administration struggles to live up to campaign promises that it would be better suited to manage the pandemic than former President Donald J. Trump and her bizarre remarks that the nation was facing “impending doom” didn’t exactly instill confidence.

Nor did going on the Rachel Maddow Show and claiming that those who have received the vaccine aren’t capable of carrying the virus.

That resulted in a rebuke from her own agency when the CDC contradicted her in remarks to the New York Times. “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview,” said an agency spokesperson. They added, “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence”.

The agency is not only seen as politicized but has often been flat-out wrong, further compounding their credibility problems. Walensky’s shooting-from-the-hip on vaccine effectiveness is not a good look for them.

RAND also delivered the bad news that, “The Biden administration will have an uphill battle in rehabilitating trust in the CDC at this critical junction in the pandemic response. A key challenge will be to identify people who will be viewed as trusted messengers regarding the vaccine and public health policies during the pandemic, and not just among the groups that previously expressed mistrust”.

It’s difficult to see how the CDC (like the FBI, DOJ, and CIA) are going to be able to convince half of the country that they are honest servants of the public interest anytime soon. Especially with the weaponizing of COVID by Democrats to advance their political agenda.