State of the Union: Broken

On Tuesday evening, after writing a 'pre-buttal' on what I see as the urgent need to kick our fossil fuel habit, I sat down to watch the State of the Union address. As the program got started, I was disappointed to see so few members of Congress wearing masks. I thought it sent the wrong signal to viewers with the ongoing pandemic. Senator Markey apparently felt similarly.

Yesterday I learned something that left me livid. Attendees of the address had to have a negative PCR test to get in, and at least six members of Congress tested positive.

I hadn't paid close attention to the speech, so I reviewed the text when I learned about the testing requirement. Below are segments from the transcript that didn't sit well with me in the light of the revelations.

The new CDC guidelines

Before I get to the speech, I want to share what I learned about the CDCs latest guideline updates. With the introduction of those, most Americans received the green light to lose their masks in most settings. (Were you expecting something clear cut?)

First, the CDC recommended that immunocompromised people wear masks in medium-risk areas. Actually, that's not quite right. Immunocompromised people are advised to “talk to their healthcare provider about whether they need to wear a mask and take other precautions” in medium-risk areas. (Have the people who wrote these guidelines met the US healthcare system?) And in high-risk areas, everyone is recommended to wear a mask, but DC is currently designated as a low-risk area.

In low risk areas, the CDC only recommends masks for people with symptoms, a positive test, or exposure to someone with COVID-19. This would now include anyone who recently came in contact with the six members of Congress that tested positive.

The CDC provided justification for their new guidelines, and the slide below breaks out the risk levels.

Along with the guidance, the CDC has a site where you can check your local community's risk level. The map below has the state of affairs as it February 24.

All of this left me with more questions than answers. What % of Americans are aware of this site? (Were you aware of it?) And of those who are aware of it, what % will check it? And how often will they check it? How often will it be updated? Why can't we sign up for updates? And what exactly are truck drivers supposed to do with this information?

The claim is that this is now a community-level problem, so the power to deal with it is being devolved to that level, but it just feels like abandonment.

I find the new CDC guidance alarming and worry it is setting us up for failure with future variants. As Katherine Wu put it, the decision delivered “a final blow to what little remained of the country’s collective approach to quashing the pandemic.”

Interrogating the SOTU

Here are the second of the SOTU address that I took reception with. I've included questions I'd like to see asked of the administration and some related commentary.

Should normal routines include PCR tests for all attendees of a gathering to move forward safely? Is that the secret ingredient that makes it safe to leave masks behind? If so, shouldn't CDC guidelines reflect that?

This claim left me wondering if any of the six members of Congress who tested positive were in contact with any immunocompromised people in recent days? Have all the people they came in contact with been notified, so that they can follow the making guidelines around exposure to people who tested positive? Also, was anyone wearing masks at the time or were they all following the CDC’s new guidelines?

Further, when six members of Congress tested positive, they only did so because they were required to take a test. They would have otherwise attended the State of the Union Address. How can you know this and still tell immunocompromised people that you're not leaving anyone behind or ignoring anyone’s needs?

This seems a remarkable thing to promise. I hope we’re capable of delivering on it, but the World Health Organization declared Omicron a Variant of Concern on November 20, 2021. That was ninety-eight days ago. Had we launched such an effort to do so on that day (Why didn't we if we have the capability?), we'd be aiming to deliver it this weekend. That'd be great for nations struggling to contain the variant — assuming we'd share it with them — but cases peaked forty-five days ago in the US (on January 16, 2022). Given that, what would the capability have done for our cumulative Omicron case count?

Our positioning seems to reflect a hope that we’ll be latecomers to any future variants while we’re doing little to contain transmission. To me, that doesn’t feel like being prepared for new variants.

Having the tools and using them are different things. Where are the efforts to improve ventilation? We should have launched a wartime mobilization-type effort for this, but it hasn’t happened. Sure, wealthy areas and private schools likely have done plenty, but what % of public schools have undertaken efforts to improve their ventilation? Also, why are we in such a rush to remove masks in schools? (A: We politicized the pandemic.)

We have an administration that has preferenced the economy and the appearance of normalcy over the health of the people. They tell us they're prepared for any future variants when they haven't been prepared for any of the ones we've faced so far and seem to be priming the pump for future ones. They tell us to get tested if we’re symptomatic, but how many of us aren’t getting tested while asymptomatic? They tell us we have the tools to make schools and businesses safe, but aren’t working to get those tools implemented universally.

I have come to distrust the messaging, decisions, and intentions of the Biden administration when it comes to their COVID-19 response. Yesterday’s revelation hardened my position.