The agency continues a pattern of arbitrary, dubious and ever-changing recommendations.

“My promise is that CDC will continue to follow the science as our guide,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told senators last week.

While Walensky thinks the CDC already is doing that, her premise is contradicted by the agency’s history of arbitrary, dubious and ever-changing advice about COVID-19.

Early in the pandemic, the CDC, together with the Food and Drug Administration, disastrously bungled the rollout of virus tests, making it impossible to curtail the spread of COVID-19 through contact tracing. Its obstruction of independently produced tests was coupled with irrationally narrow guidelines that initially recommended screening only for symptomatic travelers from China and people who had been in close contact with them.

The CDC, which at first dismissed the idea that Americans should wear face masks in public places to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, later decided such coverings were “the most important, powerful public health tool we have.” It even insisted that people who had been vaccinated should continue wearing face masks in many indoor and outdoor settings, both public and private.

That advice went by the boards last week, when the CDC decided that fully vaccinated Americans generally do not need to wear masks, except when required to do so by businesses or the government. While Walensky suggested that shift was prompted by new data, the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing asymptomatic infection as well as serious disease and death had been clear for months.

At the end of March, an emotional Walensky warned that the country faced “impending doom” if states prematurely lifted COVID-19 restrictions. Although governors who favored reopening sooner rather than later paid her no heed, the disaster she predicted did not materialize, and last week she welcomed a vaccine-enabled “return to normal life.”

In April, the CDC published impractical, absurdly restrictive recommendations for summer camps, including a requirement that kids wear face masks during outdoor activities, which infectious disease experts slammed as “cruel,” “irrational” and “unfairly draconian.” During her Senate testimony last week, Walensky allowed that “our summer camp guidance is probably going to have to change,” but only because vaccination of 12-to-15-year-olds is now underway.

Three days after the CDC issued its widely ridiculed camp guidelines, Walensky said ”less than 10% of documented transmission[s], in many studies, have occurred outdoors.” As critics such as New York Times columnist David Leonhardt and Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey pointed out, that statement, which was widely echoed by the press, was true but highly misleading, since it implied that outdoor transmission’s share of infections is close to 10% — a figure that may be off by two orders of magnitude.

The study that Walensky cited to back up her estimate, which she misrepresented in several significant ways, was inconsistent with the notion that outdoor transmission accounts for anything like 10% of infections. The actual number may be as low as 0.1%.

“I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard,” Sen. Susan Collins, R–Maine, told Walensky at the Senate hearing. “I don’t anymore.”

Collins worried that the CDC’s excessive conservatism “undermines public confidence in your recommendations,” including “the recommendations that do make sense.” Kavita Patel, health policy director during the Obama administration, expressed similar disappointment, telling CNBC “the CDC’s credibility is eroding as quickly as our cases of coronavirus are eroding.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D–Connecticut, sprang to Walensky’s defense. “I frankly appreciate the fact that we have leaders today who recognize that we still have gaps in information [and] who occasionally may err on the side of caution in order to save lives,” he said.

Murphy assumes that “gaps in information” explain the CDC’s reluctance to relax its recommendations, that the agency is actually saving lives, and that erring on the side of caution means disregarding the burdens imposed on Americans yearning for “normal life.” The CDC’s track record provides little reason to believe any of those propositions.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.

Coronavirus cases are plummeting in India thanks to new rules that promote Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to its massive population.

Of course, the WHO and pharmaceutical companies are having fits.
This is despite the fact that lives are being saved.

The COVID Blog reported:

India has received the baton for title of COVID Capitol of the World after China, Italy and the United States held it for much of last year.

The world second-most populace country after China had fewer than 138,000 total active COVID cases in early February 2021. That’s the lowest figure since January 2020. India active COVID cases sit around 3.6 million today, according to the India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Mainstream media are blaming the massive spike on a “scary, mutant variant” called B.1.617…

…The India health ministry updated its guidelines on April 28 for quarantines, treating the asymptomatic and those with mild symptoms of COVID-19. The agency now says that asymptomatic patients should “consider Tab Ivermectin (200 mcg/kg once a day, to be taken empty stomach) for 3 to 5 days.” Caregivers of patients in quarantine are instructed to “take Hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis as per protocol and as prescribed by the treating medical officer.” See the full document here.

There are 292 studies (219 are peer-reviewed) proving the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as both a treatment and prophylaxis against COVID-19. Ivermectin has 93 studies (54 peer-reviewed) showing its effectiveness as treatment and prophylaxis against COVID-19. Despite the now-indisputable fact that these drugs essentially kill COVID-19 within hours or days, the Bill Gates-funded World Health Organization (WHO) and big pharma are having fits over India’s new guidelines and the results.

And now the COVID cases are plummeting.

Via Worldometers.

And the active cases in India are also plummeting.

Of course, this will not make any headlines.

The post Elites Worried: COVID Cases in India Plummet After Government Promotes Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine Use appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

SAGE says it’s a ‘realistic possibility’ the Indian variant is 50% MORE infectious than dominant Kent strain and could lead to 1,000 Covid deaths and 10,000 hospital admissions a day by summer

• SAGE model warns that up to 10,000 people per day could be hospitalised in summer in worst-case scenario
• But scientists are optimistic vaccines will work against the strain and still no evidence it is more dangerous
• Public Health England report showed cases in the UK more than doubled in a week from 520 to 1,313

• Many lawmakers who have ordered or urged citizens not to leave their homes due to the coronavirus pandemic have not followed their own advice.
• Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for example, repeatedly implored residents not to travel but ignored her own advice, attended President Joe Biden’s inauguration, and visited her father.
• “Like a lot of children of parents who have health issues or relative who have health issues, I showed up when I was needed,” she said Wednesday. “I did a lot of cooking, a lot of cleaning.”

Medical Racism: The New Apartheid – From post-Civil War era and the Tuskegee Experiment to the present, explore the medical experimentation on Blacks in this unprecedented journey to unearth the truth.

View The Documentary Here.

Brothers Christian, 8, and Gerald Mugera, 11, volunteered for a clinical trial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children … (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun)

Eight-year-old Christian Mugera went first, extending his arm for a blood draw and then a needle stick for a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. His brother, 11-year-old Gerald, wanted to follow, but staff struggled to get a blood sample.

Their father, Dr. Charles Mugera, called them stoic in their potential contribution to science, as they were among the first scheduled to participate in a trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health. The study is assessing the safety and efficacy of the Moderna vaccine in young children.

“We did explain to them about the trial,” Mugera said. “But more importantly for them, they think getting the vaccine will bring life back to normal. That’s more convincing for them. They know they get to go to school and see their friends.” While Christian got a shot Tuesday, Gerald wasn’t able to because the staff never could obtain his blood sample. That’s needed to test participants for antibodies.

Scientists running the trial say it’s important both that individual kids and society are protected. Children are the last and potentially pivotal group in the vaccination effort to end the pandemic.

“Without children, we are unlikely to have enough people vaccinated to completely turn the epidemic,” said Dr. James Campbell, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in the medical school and the site’s principal investigator.

As a lengthy, bitter fight over mask requirements for students neared its conclusion, the chairperson of a Florida school board announced that she would agree to lift a mandate that had been in place since September even though she preferred leaving it in place until the end of the academic year. Parents hurled insults in response.

“Communist! Democrat!,” opponents of making children wear masks in school shouted as board chair Wei Ueberschaer and the district superintendent explained at a May 3 meeting that they still considered masks advisable. “This is Santa Rosa County, America, not China!”

Moments later, the Santa Rosa school board voted unanimously to make masks optional for all grades effective immediately, joining dozens of other U.S, communities in declaring that masks were or would soon no longer be mandatory for students.

The debates have been emotional and highly divisive around the country, in some cases leading to the involvement of police. A few beleaguered school boards, caught between the demands of anti-mask parents and the appeals of employee unions, eliminated student mask rules only to reverse or revise the decisions. Where many see a continued need to protect children who aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19, opponents argue that masks make students uncomfortable and mandates impinge on freedom.

“The mask is a personal choice, and I wore it at the beginning, but I just decided that it wasn’t about the mask anymore,” said Cynthia Licharowicz, a Milton, Florida, parent who opposed Santa Rosa County’s rule. “So I decided to take it off, and I wanted my child to have the same choice.” . . .

CNN is the recognized leader in Pandemic Panic Porn. Whenever you see someone having a meltdown over someone not wearing their mask good enough, the smart money is that person isn’t getting their info from BlazeTV. They’re getting it from the network with the bright purple death counter running 24/7. The network that shamed people who have even slightly challenged the official narrative. The network that based their editorial decisions on what would be worse for Trump. The same network who watches Fox News and complains about their pandemic coverage. That CNN.

So when Don Lemon goes on CNN and bashes his mother for still living in fear … c’mon son.

She chipped her tooth during the pandemic and she won’t go to the dentist. And I say, “Mom, you can go to the dentist, it’s safe.” Sanjay is going to do a house call on her because this is real, people are having trouble reemerging into society.

And if you are going to say during the entire pandemic and I am talking to you, mom and I’m talking to you my other friend – and I won’t say your name because she’ll get mad at me. If you are going to say I believe in the science and the scientists, then now on this side of the pandemic, then you must believe in the science and scientists as well.

Some of us have been maskless outside this whole time. Living in (mostly) silent judgment of those wearing them. I wonder where Don Lemon’s mom learned to live in such fear?

• CNN Doctor Wants You Masked Up Every Winter from Now On, but Not Because of COVID
• CNN Enlists Greta Thunberg for COVID-19 Town Hall. Was Cookie Monster Unavailable?
• This is CNN: Analyst Demands Biden Only Allow Americans’ ‘Freedom’ for Most Insane Reason Yet
• CNN Director Says Quiet Part Out Loud, Admits Network Purposely Exploits Pandemic Fear

To be kinda fair to Lemon, Joe Biden doesn’t help. Whenever Americans start to show the slightest bit of hope, Biden puts on an extra mask and stands out in an empty field just to be spiteful. People like Don Lemon’s mother are just following the former vice-president’s example. We’re a news cycle away from Biden sending his aide to gather up every mask in a five-mile radius and sewing them together as a new suit. The virtue signaling is strong in Biden.

But people have been taught to live in constant fear for over a year. Any time anyone attempted to provide the slightest bit of hope, they were shut down. They were shut down on CNN and by people like Don Lemon. Instead of putting his mother on blast, he should take a look at the cryon under his smug face. Then take a look in the mirror.