[mercy_dude]

> The CDC did fine with what they had to work with to be honest.

If that’s the standard we have to live by after the most devastating pandemic in a century for the most developed country in the world, then there is not going to be any lessons or improvement when the next one hits.

The CDC didn’t (still doesn’t) have a full picture of mode of transmission of the virus (aerosol vs others). They kept saying it’s not airborne when all being said it looks like it is. Their focus on hand washing in retrospection seems like not a productive strategy whatsoever. The whole mask fiasco (first saying it isn’t recommended and then a straight up 180) caused the public in rooted mistrust and then their PR umbrella did a poor job addressing and admitting any failure. Their PR branch effectively did nothing to earn trust of a large swaths of public who didn’t buy into vaccination other than often resorting to name calling and gaslighting the debate further which is absolutely the opposite of what you would want to do in that situation if you really want people to get vaccinated. Many occasions they did slow walk backs and often no oversights on grants and revolving doors setup within these agencies with FDA and other pharma industries. Calling everyone criticizing you “anti-science” is a great way of not learning any lessons for next epidemic. There is a lot we can do better.