However, it would leave me with the impression that the CDC and such are maybe not the best people to look to in such a quickly evolving and novel situation.
That is exactly the reason the CDC was created, to allow a single centralized body to analyze and integrate medical knowledge for responding to this sort of novel situation.
https://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/mission.htmMission:
Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same...
CDC Role:
Detecting and responding to new and emerging health threatsTackling the biggest health problems causing death and disability for Americans
Putting science and advanced technology into action to prevent disease
You may not approve of
the way they do their job, but that is the job that we (as a country) have asked them to do.
For example, I don't think Dr. Fauci is a bad guy, he's just way out of his zone.
Again, I disagree with this. This is
exactly his zone. This is the same role he played in the US response to AIDS, MERS, SARS1, Ebola, Zika... He was the public face, not doing the nitty gritty lab work. Most of us either missed those times or didn't pay attention, but among infectious disease specialists, he was widely applauded for that work, which is why he was one of the few kept on from the previous administration.
"We need to follow the data and the science" is a weak slogan seemingly intended more to cover their rears than actual evolving along with the situation.
rather saying over and over again we don't know, but this is what our best guess is. I have personally spoken to doctors about various aspects of COVID as it related to myself and family members, and paradoxically the ones who prefaced every statement with "we really don't know, but this is what we think and our educated guess about how to be safest given the currently available information" were the ones I trusted the most.
I'm not seeing the difference between these.
Secondly, as you wrote below, its not as easy as you might think to go back and find concrete examples, but has there not been any statements which you felt that even at the time they were said too strongly and seemingly contrary to some basic available information?
No, nothing I can remember. Does that say something about my memory?
But I think part of that might be due to the sources that I rely on, as I've noted elsewhere. I don't use WhatsApp or Facebook or Instagram. I've listened to many of Fauci's press conferences and interviews, most of which are in the 30-60 minute range, so I'm not seeing individual "statements" that seem inappropriate. I read the NY Times science articles, which give easier to grasp messages from Fauci's talks, filled in with the basic science background, often written by journalists who themselves have degrees in the sciences. I read other online sources that are mostly longer form, rather than tweets.
Where are you (or your friends) hearing these statements that seem too strong or contradictory?
Because it sounds like you're saying some of the distrust comes from the way the message is being presented:
Again its somewhat due to the nature of the process and so on, but getting up after the fact and admitting openly and clearly "yes, we were wrong about this and we are now advising something else" would also go a long way. I hear what you're saying about that being almost inevitable with the way this works, but its all about the presentation. We are not all scientists nor do we usually see how the hotdog is made.
And that brings up a third point which I think evolves from that. Scientists should not be telling us how to guard our health or get better, that is the job for our doctors (of course based on the conclusions and research done by the scientists). .. It is simply ludicrous to have one general medical guidance for 300 million people.
Sounds like you're cancelling the whole field of Public Health! When we are given advice from the CDC or NIH, it's generally not the lab scientists who give that advice, but rather those working in the field of public health. Many have degrees in Public Health, others have MDs and have pivoted to the field of public health. Again, among the roles of the CDC:
Tackling the biggest health problems causing death and disability for Americans
Putting science and advanced technology into action to prevent disease
Promoting healthy and safe behaviors, communities and environment
They don't deny the role of personal physicians, and in fact have encouraged people to consult with them, but their role definitely is to tell us how to guard our health.
As such, while I don't think it would necessarily be good public policy to announce that anyone who thinks they had covid does not necessarily need 1 or two shots, a personal doctor can help decide that. Would it be so terrible for the CDC to say "We are still evaluating the data about natural immunity, discuss your situation with your doctor?"
This whole issue about vaccines for covid recoverees has come up several times here, and I'll try to get to it later. I would just point out that the mistrust has been expressed here for many months before the vaccine became available.
