Actually, it is illegal for the CDC to tell you to “return to normal activities” while infected with a deadly communicable disease.
Very illegal.
Specifically, it is a direct violation of the Public Health Service Act, a federal law which mandates HHS public health agencies’ “responsibility for preventing, transmission and spread of communicable diseases”.
It also violates federal law under Title 1 of the PHSA Section 101, which requires HHS to take “strategic initiatives to advance countermeasures to DIAGNOSE, MITIGATE, PREVENT OR TREAT any biological agent.”
It further violates PHSA Title 1 Section 101, as it relates to protecting at-risk people. It orders HHS to “disseminate and update novel and best practices of outreach and care of at-risk individuals before, during and following public health emergencies in a timely manner”.
There’s more. The CDC’s unjustified scientifically bankrupt new isolation guidance and how it was implemented is also a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which sets forth the procedures federal agencies must follow when issuing guidance.
A federal agency can’t issue guidance without warning and without public comment. It also can’t issue guidance without evidence-based reasoning, that goes against established science, that is based on misinformation, or that could harm the public.
The CDC must provide a factual basis and purpose for any new guidance. They violated the APA by swiftly and unjustly changing public health guidance (and doing so several times over the last few years) without considering what’s safe for the public. That’s illegal.
And no “to update guidance with public’s desire to move on from pandemic measures” is NOT a factual basis for changing public health guidance in a way that makes it more likely a communicable disease will spread.
The Federal Tort Claims Act is another federal law that makes the government liable for negligence if it takes action that results in the harm or injury to individuals or the public, including by public health threats.
There are many state laws making it a crime to expose someone to disease. So, by making an official statement instructing the public to “return to normal activities” while actively infectious with a deadly communicable disease, they are encouraging people to break the law.
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C0VlD is currently at its lowest transmission levels in the U.S. in over a year.
STILL…
In a space with 30 people, there’s a 1-in-5 chance someone is actively infectious with C0VlD right now.
We can do better than this.
With sensible & cost effective measures, we could get transmission down to less than 100 copies/mL in wastewater locally & nationwide (and *sustain* it).
That would make essential spaces like public transit, medical facilities & others safer for all, especially the vulnerable.
The ONLY reason we don’t do sensible measures that would drastically improve the C0VlD situation on a long-term basis is that corporations (and therefore our corporate-owned governments) don’t want us to.