EIS 70th---a persective

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.The celebration was augmentented by honouring Anne Shukhat who is retiring. So here in outpost West, we had a gathering of John Kobayashi, Gary Goldbaum, Mark Oberle, Marguerite Pappiaouo, David Brandling Bennet and Sally Stansfield

This past year of COVID has been so painful for all of us.Even more so when one knows what "should" have happened versus what actually happened. Like being invited to watch a train wreck in slow motion where all the passengers (500,000 deaths so far) will die. For us it was the first opportunity to meet (fully vaccinated) and talk face to face about COVID and what happened.

While not ready for an "after action" because we are still in action, the conversation for us was like opening the valve on a pressure cooker. Each of us had so much to say, so much to understand,. so much to postulate. We are all like minded as EIS officers. This has been a monumental screw up by CDC, and by the Federal government. It would be wrong to attribute all the failures to just CDC or just to the 45th President. So here is where the conversation went:

1) Testing: No one could understand why the US refused the German test offered by WHO and rely on the CDC test which proved to have failures.

2) Testing and sampling: No direction was provided to State and Local health departments for framing testing. To follow the metric, one needs to understand the sampling. No direction from CDC came forward to local health for ascertaining prevalence in a community. We flied blind.

3) Mask use- It seems that supply concerns rather than science drove the decision to eschew masks. Everyone on the planet knows that masking works for respiratory viruses, including airborne spread. Billions of Asians are not wrong in using masks routinely for respiratory prevention. Seems the powers that be forgot that Americans can make masks, and we were not at all dependent on their formal (China sourced) supply.

4) State and Local Health departments have been significantly weakened over the course of the Pandemic, which is the opposite of what one would hope for. The "OPERATION WARP SPEED" contacts to Pharmacy chains (which were non-performative for months) and the distribution of vaccine did not include consultation nor advice from local health. Local Health officials were often blind sided and by passed, and yet the first stop for irate citizens looking to complain about social distancing or looking for vaccine. 250 local health officers have left their posts in the last year, according to the National Alliance County Health Officers (NACCHO) At least two of our number had served as state or local health officers and we all agreed the situation was dire.

5) Finally the big one: where did this bug come from? There has been a new report :https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/#.YLudIiruerJ.mailto which is not peer reviewed. Nonetheless this was cause to pause and question.

The bottom line for us was that we were able to gather in person, debate and question and not bore the non-epidemiologists in our social realm. It was emotionally a relief. Like a pressure valve release. More of these difficult questioning conversations will undoubtedly happen as more people can gather and talk. What would be the worst outcome would be for Americans, as we all get vaccinated, to forget the lessons we need to learn from this catastrophe. While politics and science do not mix well, somehow they need to become aligned to prevent future epidemics. The company and the lasagne was excellent--comments from this list are welcome. Time for a broader discussion to assure we do not forget, and we can learn moving forward for more security of Global Health.