Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 4, 2024 13 tweets 8 min read Read on X
⚠️BEYOND ANGRY—Lots of confusion on CDC’s new isolation guidelines— why? Because The CDC MADE THEM CONFUSING & VAGUE ON PURPOSE. Proponents claim it still has “some isolation” & still “some precautions”. But if you read actual guidelines (which are clear as mud)—see if you think they are vague/confusing…

1) stay home if symptoms “not better explained by another cause” ➡️ummm WHAT THE HELL??? Do people need to both likely ask doctor to exclude all other causes, or SELF-DIAGNOSE and play SELF-EPIDEMIOLOGY to attribute symptom causation to be <50% other cause? How do people even do that? Give me a frigging break.

2) If no fever, “Symptoms getting better overall”—➡️how do you define BETTER and OVERALL? 💡What if sneezing less frequent but runny nose still bad? 💡What if coughing less, less headache, but sneezing more? HOW THE HELL DO PEOPLE WEIGHT THESE DIFFERENT SYMPTOMS?!?! (Also keep in mind 50% of all COVID transmission is asymptomatic…. So this one is disingenuous to begin with). What the heck @CDCgov — you know this is outright dereliction of duty to put out trash guidelines like this!

3) After you go back to school/work/social settings—➡️for next 5 days (which does NOT guarantee you’re not infectious anymore at all to begin with)… “take precautions such as …. [LIST]… and/***or*** [LIST]”… the 🔥key detail I want to highlight is the super vague “or” near the end of that sentence! Why? Well, the explicit meaning therefore is simple “CHOOSE ONE OF THE ABOVE [LIST] OF PRECAUTIONS”. Thus, the @CDCDirector is basically telling you that you can do almost nothing and casually do one like “Simply TEST” and you can be around others—the CDC doesn’t even say “Only if you test negative”—just simply “test”!

This is honestly one of the WORST guidelines the @CDCgov has ever written. It is purposefully vague and allows a myriad of loopholes and subjective interpretations— exactly the kind of stuff corporate executives and politicians love — they can say they are complying with the CDC while doing virtually nothing much at all to protect people and public health!

This on on too of the already horrible shoddy data/analysis that the guideline is supposedly based on (see earlier 🧵), and based on data from likely illegally enacted CA guidelines (see other legal complaint 🧵)…. ➡️This is honestly one of the worst despicable disingenuous corrupt guidelines that the @CDCgov @CDCFlu has ever done and @CDCDirector has ever rubber stamped. The CDC used to be a shining beacon on a hill—it is now inept and/or complicit and has betrayed its mission to disease *control and prevention* that is in its very name.

(Share if you agree. Or explain in comments if you disagree.)

P.s. to my friends inside the CDC network—know that I respect you very much for your tireless work and efforts.🙏 The arc of the moral universe is long—but it does bend to justice. Keep doing quality science, keep internally fighting the good fight for public health, and know that your efforts to voice your opposition to CDC leaders will not in vain. The inept political leaders do not represent for all of you, and do not take away from your best efforts to protect public health. Don’t be afraid to stand up for reason, stand for good unpolluted science, and stand on the right side of history. In a world of public health—Don’t be a Mandy Cohen, be a Rosa Parks. Stay strong.✊🏼


cdc.gov/media/releases…
cdc.gov/respiratory-vi…Image
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2) The reason I’m able to know about CDC internal discussions and thinking is that I had advanced notice and had insider insights into rationale & knowledge of the data analyses they ran. It’s sooooo bullshit…. Here is my longer thread 🧵 explaining the JUNK IN ==> JUNK OUT. 🗑️
3) this kind of trashy data analysis justification would get past any doctoral Epidemiology program. My former mentors once chastised me for running the very type of trash analysis that CDC used to justify. And they used CA policy data—which was dubious to begin with.
4) We have filed a legal complaint against California Dept of Public Health and Cal OSHA regarding their isolation guideline drop—the impetus and data behind the CDC's new isolation rules. the CA rule was very strange & was illegally enacted—thus invalid!
5) I want to reemphasize my message to the the majority of the hardworking dedicated CDC scientists & staff:

P.s. to my friends inside the CDC network—know that I respect you very much for your tireless work and efforts.🙏 The arc of the moral universe is long—but it does bend to justice. Keep doing quality science, keep internally fighting the good fight for public health, and know that your efforts to voice your opposition to CDC leaders will not in vain. The inept political leaders do not represent for all of you, and do not take away from your best efforts to protect public health. Don’t be afraid to stand up for reason, stand for good unpolluted science, and stand on the right side of history. In a world of public health—Don’t be a Mandy Cohen, be a Rosa Parks. Stay strong.✊🏼
6) it has been widely rumored and discussed among colleagues that CDC Director Mandy Cohen notoriously has a thin-skin and easily feels insecure when snubbed by political leaders and the WH especially. Also not a surprise—she is a widely-known personal appointee of WH COS Zients.
7) if “85-90% of viral transmission occur in [first 5 days]”… hence we moved 10 to 5 days isolation in 2021—then why is there no isolation 5 days anymore? Because CDC is obviously moving the goal posts and pretending we don’t notice & forget #LongCovid.
8) we used to care about STOPPING TRANSMISSION—hence why we asked people to use condoms. But apparently CDC doesn’t care. COVID and LC costs $200 billion a year. But hey, cost of business shouldered by tax payers.
9) why do I say this new CDC guideline is every corporation’s wet dream? Because removing isolation rules is EXACTLY what they want to force workers back to work / slash their compensation for not coming back while still sick.
10) Curtain call for prevention and control of #COVID…. This is the end… of free COVID home test kids.
11) my dedication to this moment in history… this is for you @CDCgov & @CDCDirector
@CDCgov @CDCDirector 12) great summary of the tsunami of COVID research that contradicts the core essence of @CDCgov’s latest guidelines
@CDCgov @CDCDirector 13) local cities in recent weeks prior to CDC announcement: “We expect the CDC to rescind the 5 day isolation period in the very near future. Once the CDC guidance is updated, 📌employees will no longer be eligible for Covid pay for any period of isolation.”🔥 #ThanksMandy Image

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More from @DrEricDing

Apr 10
It’s a trap: CATCH 22—if you register, ICE will deport you. If you don’t register, you’ve now committed a crime for the first time, and ICE will deport you. Trump doesn’t care if you’ve paid all taxes and followed all laws—ICE will deport you.

apnews.com/article/illega…Image
2) The Department of Homeland Security announced that it was mandating that all people in the United States illegally register with the federal government, and said those who didn’t self-report could face fines or prosecution. ***Failure to register is considered a crime***
3) Registration will be mandatory for everyone 14 and older without legal status. People registering have to provide their fingerprints and address, and parents and guardians of anyone under age 14 must ensure they registered. The registration process also applies to Canadians who are in the U.S. for more than 30 days, such as so-called snowbirds who spend winter months in places like Florida.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 3
Now economists know how scientists felt back when he pushed “hydroxychloroquine”
2) HCQ preventing COVID deaths has been debunked— and it’s now been linked with deaths.

@JoshuaPCohen1
forbes.com/sites/joshuaco…Image
@JoshuaPCohen1 3) JPMorgan on Trump Tariffs: “The largest tax increase since 1968” Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 28
My god—Earthquake (a Richter ~7.7) causes a skyscraper to collapse in Bangkok. Hope all the construction workers made it out.
2) this skyscraper collapse was captured from a distant car’s dashcam while on a highway

3) another view of the collapse. For those who lived through 9/11, this collapse is a bit triggering.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 27
Welp—kiss public health & medical research infrastructure in America goodbye for the next 4 years. RFK Jr plans to cut 10,000 jobs from Trump HHS. Image
2) this will not make America healthy again… not by a long shot. So dangerous and irresponsible.
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 15
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.Image
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2) Full text:

PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.

The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.

Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.

“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”

He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.

Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.

“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”

A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.

Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.

“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”

Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.

Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.

He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.

“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”

bostonglobe.com/2025/03/14/met…Image
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon Image
Read 8 tweets
Mar 14
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…

Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
3) *Fallen, not failed (above).

Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.
Read 4 tweets

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