Great News, Everybody! They Are Just Stupid. Not Evil.

Consider this graph from the COVID-19 vaccine page on the CDC's website: 

Notice the red trendline, which is the 7-day moving average of first doses, and how it peaks around April 11. Notice also how it is now as of May 8th (as reported May 13th) lower than it has been at any time since January 12th. 

What happened on April 11th??? Well, that was when the CDC and the FDA began floating concerns about the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine. Concerns that would manifest themselves two days later in a "pause" of administration of that particular vaccine. 

From not allowing experimentation and wide-scale testing, to not allowing challenge trials, to insisting on doing their own, slow trials on vaccines, to delaying the information and launch of the vaccines, to not doing first doses first, to not approving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, to not doing half doses or using more efficient needles, etc. we have seen over and over our medical regulatory state fail us. The cost is unnecessary deaths, unnecessary and compounding hardship (emotional and economic), and deterioration in the confidence people have in public health. 

So how is this great news? Consider this:

Summary of Recent Changes

• Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance
• Update that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter

The CDC and federal officials in general are backpedaling fiercely from every policy and limitation they adamantly were insisting upon over the past several months. It is clear they are in panic mode over the plunging rates of vaccination. They probably correctly understand that there was a coming falloff from both the most vaccine resistant as well as those who had COVID and didn't feel a vaccine was necessary. All of this snowballing against vaccination as cases and deaths decline rapidly.

The great news is they actually do care and don't want a good portion of the U.S. population to die. One would be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the above list of mistakes. But it turns out they are not evil. They just are stupid. Hanlon's Razor for the win!