The History
The Communicable Disease Center opened its doors in 1946, charged with keeping malaria from spreading across the nation. Armed with very few people and a relatively small budget, they went after mosquitoes, keeping us safe from disaster. With this early success, the founder, Dr. Mountin, felt it was prudent to expand the mission to all communicable diseases and later, to chronic disease, disabilities, workplace hazards, bioterrorism and more. The CDC pioneered the field of epidemiology, probably the most visible part of the organization and often featured in movies. Their work saved many lives as well as keeping threats from spreading from their origins.
Mission Creep
As a part of the administrative state (the Department of Health and Human Services), mission creep was inevitable, resulting in a workforce in excess of 16,000. Success can also breed complacency and a feeling that they can accomplish anything, neglecting the many successes of private industry in curing/solving complex medical issues. This growth also caused them to lose sight of the many infectious diseases that was their charter from the beginning. The CDC took on alcohol and tobacco use, studied athletic injuries and traffic accidents and inserted themselves into the issue of gun violence (though apparently, they weren’t interested in other kinds of violence.) All this helped justify unprecedented growth in staff and budget (far beyond inflation), which is all most agencies care about.
This growth causes them to duplicate work done by other agencies and to give much less attention to infectious disease, a problem highlighted by their problems managing the CCP virus. Vaping took up a sizable part of the budget, even as it was clear that the health issues were due to black market vape pens, which becomes a law enforcement issue.
The Virus
Somewhere along the line, the CDC insisted on a monopoly for developing tests for infectious diseases, which cost us much time, money and even human lives; their tests weren’t good enough. A lot of our exceptionalism comes from competition—healthy striving by private companies to answer a pressing need. Inevitably, all of the best answers to testing, treating and prevention came from Big Pharma, a regular bugbear of the Left.
Even worse, I heard nothing about epidemiologists being dispatched to Wuhan to identify Patient Zero, any animal vectors and to deeply understand this coronavirus variant. This is what the CDC does or claimed to do, but only some compromised scientists from WHO did this work, poorly. In every other situation, they would study and identify the disease, name it by where it originated—Wuhan—and understand how it spreads. Further work would be done to contain it, often including quarantines and border closures, early on in the disease.
Distractions
With much of its budget and too many people engaged in non-core work, perhaps they didn’t have the resources. After all, it probably takes quite a number of scientists to try to learn enough about guns and the legitimate gun owners, as it is a subject alien to an aspect of their considerable training. The vaping “problem” disappeared, though they still wish to eliminate this option from people who wish to continue some form of smoking, a choice adults should be allowed to make.
They’ve also become political, as witness the constantly changing scientific advice that seems to respond to political agenda more than evidenced science. “Social distancing,” a ridiculous concept when we have the words “physical distancing” already, came out of a kid’s science project; first it was six feet, then three. I guarantee you that if an infected person sneezes at you, six feet isn’t enough. And yet, in most instance, where we pass each other quickly, the risks are extremely low. Masking, then double and triple masking, N-95 masks (quickly not mentioned because they were in scarce supply after the government’s stash had been used up in Superstorm Sandy). Surgeons will tell you; they wear masks in surgery to avoid being sprayed by bodily fluids and to avoid sneezing or spitting into the patient). If they are truly worried about infection, they wear a “space suit.”
I have a scientific background (M.S. in biochemical genetics). Science does change, but when it does, you have an explanation for the change in guidance. And you explain to laypeople that we start with little information and advise as we gather more. You don’t make things up, nor do you look to the federal administration for answers.
What Should Happen
The CDC needs to get back to its original mission until it has proven that it can competently execute it. The moment we learned about this disease, the CDC should have sent epidemiologists to China to understand what was happening, and shut down travel between our countries (as well as providing advice to other governments on their findings). If they had cleaved to their original charter, this “pandemic” most likely would not have been a global disaster, killing people, destroying livelihoods and disrupting nearly everything.
We also would have the details on the origins and been able to fix blame on the CCP for doing dangerous research in an inadequately protected lab, lying about it and keeping the secret of their problem from us for many months.
Get the CDC back on mission or dissolve it. There is a purpose, but they have lost their direction.
I'd add the notion they have authority to make laws, i.e. the rent moratorium, is clearly out of their scope. The fact that they did that virtually unchallenged and even supported by members of Congress is frightening.