Public Health Communication Pause Update
The January 21 pause on public health communications has not yet been formally lifted. Still, most of the COVID-related data that you may have become accustomed to reading about in our reports seems to be back up. Of course, as the administration has pointed out in its communication, nothing can be published without being approved by a personal appointee. We can only expect that the administration is sanitizing and altering reports, censoring scientific consensus.
We are working on identifying other sources of data to help give a clearer picture of what is going on. In the meantime, it is essential that you find your local health department and follow the guidance you get from them.
El clima
We still have a CDC-based wastewater map, which was updated on February 6. It shows 31 states with “High” or “Very High” levels of SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater. These high levels are found throughout the country. Mississippi, Missouri, New York, and South Dakota have limited coverage, meaning that data from those states are based on less than 5% of the population. There is no data for Guam, North Dakota, Oregon, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The CDC has determined that national levels are “high.”
Wastewater trends indicate increases in all regions except the Midwest, which seems to be staying relatively stable in the “high” zone. The increase in the Northeast is most pronounced compared to the other regions, nearly reaching levels seen during last summer’s peak. It is likely that this regional increase explains the national levels moving from “moderate” into the “high” category.
As always, remember that the determination of the categories of “Very High,” “High,” “Moderate,” “Low,” and “Minimal” is independent of any relationship to community transmission. In other words, these categories do not necessarily reflect one’s risk of getting sick within each region at any given time. Wastewater data is best suited to reveal if levels in your area are increasing or decreasing, or how levels in your area compare with other times throughout the course of the pandemic.
Flu wastewater levels have also increased nationally, and are now considered “very high” according to the CDC’s National wastewater surveillance system. The CDC acknowledges that, “The ongoing avian influenza A (H5) (bird flu) outbreak in U.S dairy cows and poultry may be contributing to the moderate and high influenza (flu) A virus wastewater levels in some jurisdictions, based on reviewing multiple data sources,” and notes that, “The risk to the public of avian influenza A (H5) is currently low.” We will report more on the bird flu below.
Especially in this time of uncertainty and questionable data transparency, we need to keep ourselves and our communities safe using KF94/KN95/N95 masking and as many layers of protection as possible. We are happy to announce that we have recently updated our Safer Gathering Guide! Check it out and share it widely!
Hospitalizaciones
Hospitalization data comes from COVID-NET, “a population-based surveillance system that collects data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among children and adults. The current network comprises over 300 acute-care hospitals in 13 states.” This data shows decreases in COVID-related hospitalizations nationally since the first week of January.
Wins
Chicago-based organizers have been frustrating ICE, who have been unable to detain as many people as they would like because people in Chicago are “very well educated” and “Know [their] Rights.”
Organizers acted quickly to save public data purged and/or threatened by the Trump administration. Thousands of informational pages were removed from federal public health websites this past week as a means of implementing US president’s January 20th executive orders “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.”
These included vital reference materials for healthcare providers and patients on HIV guidance and testing, health disparities in populations such as LGBT youth and radicalized populations, and health guidance for pregnant people.
ACA Signups, an independent online project started in 2013 to compile and analyze enrollment data around the Affordable Care Act and to organize it on a transparent public platform has taken on the labor of indexing every single page of the CDC, FDA, and CMS websites as they existed pre-the Trump administration data purge. The complete CDC website as it stood pre-January 27th, 2025 can be accessed here, y the complete FDA website is here, while the complete CMS website (~75,000 pages) is in progress and can be accessed here.
Tomar acción
Call Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s office at (410) 974-3901 or 1-800-811-8336 and demand he use his executive authority to prevent Elon Musk and his collaborators from further breaching sensitive data at the NIH and CMS which are physically located in Maryland.
Do you have an organizing home yet? Volunteer and find support with a Mask Bloc o other COVID Action group in your area. By taking action together, we create larger and larger waves of change.
There are a lot of protests happening, and rightfully so! Plug in. This page includes tips about organizing and attending safer protests.
There are more awful federal appointees on the schedule. Call and tell your electeds to oppose them.
H5N1 Updates
As the Trump administration continues its extreme overhaul of numerous federal institutions and erasing crucial health data, updates on bird flu have also ceased for the time being. Last week, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report contained a curial update suggesting transmission of bird flu between humans and cats. This information was quickly removed but journalists were able to obtain it before it disappeared. The transmission of bird flu between cats and humans presents yet another new transmission route and underscores the increasing risk posed to public health and the intense denialism the US government is committed to.
Additionally 6 dairy herds in Nevada have tested positive for a variant of bird flu that is associated with more severe disease in humans, meaning the workers at these farms are at high risk of severe disease if they get infected. In New York City, several poultry farms had chickens test positive for bird flu, prompting a swift shutdown of the local live poultry market and forcing those at farms without cases to sell their chickens as quickly as they can. Continued increases in the cost of eggs and meat can be expected. As the virus continues to spread to more animals, places, and people, the risk of a devastating human pandemic increases.
Tuberculosis Update
There is an ongoing outbreak of Tuberculosis in Kansas which includes 67 confirmed active cases and 79 latent cases (as of January 31) . Active tuberculosis is when people have symptoms such as cough, difficulty breathing, weight loss, night sweats, and are contagious; latent tuberculosis means that the bacterium is present but inactive. About 1 in 10 cases of latent tuberculosis will become active without treatment – usually when someone gets older or their immune system becomes weakened.) We have also seen reports of cases in schools in California, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina. In each of these cases, contact tracing, screening, and treatment efforts are underway, but of course, the anti-public health agenda of the Trump administration threatens efforts to keep us safe. We will continue to keep our eyes on tuberculosis reporting in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can protect yourself by getting screened and… you guessed it… masking!
Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 2/6/2024. 2) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more at https://peoplescdc.org. 3) Subscribe to our newsletter: People’s CDC | Substack.
Also! If you’re donating to us through substack, consider getting the substack for free (it’s not paywalled!) and donating to us directly. That way, there are fewer fees between your bank account and ours! Also, get your FIGHT FASCISM–WEAR A MASK T-shirt today.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
El CDC del pueblo es una coalición de profesionales de la salud pública, científicos, trabajadores de la salud, educadores, defensores y personas de todos los ámbitos de la vida que trabajan para reducir los impactos dañinos de COVID-19.
Brindamos orientación y recomendaciones de políticas a los gobiernos y al público sobre COVID-19, difundiendo actualizaciones basadas en evidencia que se basan en la equidad, los principios de salud pública y la literatura científica más reciente.
Working alongside community organizations, we are building collective power and centering equity as we work together to end the pandemic. The People’s CDC is volunteer-run and independent of partisan political and corporate interests and includes anonymous local health department and other government employees. The People’s CDC is completely volunteer run with infrastructure support being provided by the People’s Science Network.
Though the People’s CDC was supported initially through a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, that grant has long expired. We no longer pursue or accept grant funding. We are now entirely funded by people who donate to us. Most of these donations make their way to us through our Substack platform (which anyone can access for free!) or through purchases of People’s CDC swag. Our website now has a donate link for anonymous donations.
The content that we put out is entirely created by volunteers who receive no funding for their work. We pay one person for their labor–a digital organizer. They help us update and maintain our website, make sure we all know what meetings are happening and when, post our content on social media, and monitor our email. They also act as the point person between our organization and our fiscal sponsor, People’s Science Network.
We also pay for a People’s CDC T-shirt for any volunteer who wants one.