(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) CDC Director Rochelle Walensky complained in a “60 Minutes” interview that the agency does not have the power to compel state and local governments to share health data with the federal government, and that the agency cannot properly fulfill its role without such authority.
“We are the compiler of the data, but we do not have the authority to collect it,” she said. “And so we rely on states being willing to share it with us, and the data use authorizations and data use agreements in order to do so.”
Walensky hinted that the COVID-19 pandemic may have given the CDC an opportunity to expand its power to compel states to provide health data.
“But I do think that that is something that is going to have to be critical to come out of this pandemic,” she said. “If people want the CDC to be responsible, to be able to report in a timely fashion and in a quick fashion, we have to have the authority to collect those data.”
Walensky praised Israel’s health care system as a model for the United States.
“They have a unified health system. They have a singular health system that speaks freely with their public health system,” she said.
“Their data speak freely to one another, and so they can report incredible kinds of science that we cannot report.”
Israel has pushed COVID-19 vaccination to the general population, including a fourth-dose booster for certain populations, yet the nation saw a massive spike in cases earlier this year.
Now that the ruling class’s narrative has shifted from the virus to Ukraine, Walensky has advised Americans to stop wearings masks and to treat COVID-19 as another season illness like the flu, NBC News reported.
“I would say put your masks in a drawer, anticipate you may need them again and hope that we don’t,” she said.
