Press

Discover the People’s CDC in media from around the country

Masked woman photographed through glass with porch, neighborhood houses, and cars reflected.

STAT

CDC eases isolation guidance for COVID and other respiratory illnesses

“The proposal would make workplaces and public spaces even more unsafe for everyone, particularly for people who are high-risk for Covid complications,” Sam Friedman, a research professor of population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a press release issued by a group called the People’s CDC.

Red background with color text made of various graphics reads "STAY HOME." Masked man facing left wearing black/gray striped shirt. Hastag stay home in white text, smaller font size at bottom left of center

NPR

Got COVID? CDC says stay home while you’re sick, but drops it 5-day isolation rule

“This proposal is not based on new data [on COVID transmission],” said Dr. Kim Rhoads, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, in an email from the advocacy group the People’s CDC.
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Two rapid COVID tests

The Hill

CDC ending five-day isolation guidance

“The CDC is again prioritizing short term business interests over our health by caving to employer pressure on COVID guidelines. This is a pattern we’ve seen throughout the pandemic,” said Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and a member of the People’s CDC, a coalition of public health practitioners, healthcare workers and advocates focusing on reducing the harmful impacts of COVID-19. 

People in public setting. Some wearing masks. Others are not.

New Republic

COVID taught us a lot. The CDC now wants us to forget it

The agency reportedly plans to tell people with COVID and other infections to isolate based on symptoms. Researchers say symptoms aren’t a good indicator of who’s contagious

Two rapid COVID tests

Washington Post

CDC plans to drop five-day COVID isolation guidelines

The plan to further loosen isolation guidance when the science around infectiousness has not changed is likely to prompt strong negative reaction from vulnerable groups, including people older than 65, those with weak immune systems and long-COVID patients…

Masked man walking down hallway

Boston Globe

CDC plans to drop five-day COVID isolation guidelines

Coronavirus levels in wastewater indicate that symptomatic and asymptomatic infections remain high. About 20,000 people are still hospitalized – and about 2,300 are dying  every week, CDC data show. But the numbers are falling and are much lower than when deaths peaked in January 2021 when almost 26,000 people died of COVID each week and about 115,000 were hospitalized.

Wisconsin Public Radio

A call to return to masking in health care facilities

In recent months, hospitals have stopped requiring people to wear masks in their facilities. We speak with a pathologist who is among many health care workers calling for universal masking in medical facilities because of the risks facing workers and patients.”

Kate Archer Kent

TruthOut

Denial Isn’t an Effective Health Care Strategy, Say People With Long COVID

Saying that the pandemic is over is a public health failure,” a People’s CDC spokesperson told Truthout. “We should be telling people about the risks of long COVID, showing them how to be careful, arming them with knowledge about the risks, and teaching them prevention strategies.”

Eleanor J. Bader

Commonweal

The Pandemic Isn’t Over

“The People’s CDC, a coalition devoted to advocacy for a more vigorous response to the COVID threat, has argued that the winding down of the national and public-health emergencies, far from reflecting any kind of genuine victory over the virus, is in fact the culmination of a “major political push to minimize public recognition of the ongoing harm of the pandemic.”

Matt Mazewski

Los Angeles Times

What you need to know to stay safe from COVID now that the public health emergency has ended

“The doctors, scholars and public health advocates who call themselves the People’s CDC say the real Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has abdicated its responsibility to protect the most vulnerable Americans and should be calling for continued masking in public indoor spaces, among other policies.”

Melissa Healy 

Person administering injection wearing blue gloves

The Providence Journal

Opinion: COVID is not done with us

“Consider getting information from a nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit source like The People’s CDC. COVID is going to be with us for a long time. Learning to live with it doesn’t mean ignoring it.”

Nick Landekic

Cartoon of white man appearing to be aristrocratic

The New Yorker

UNMASKED

“A fair-minded article might have looked at the morbidity and mortality numbers, and tried to explain what we could have done differently, and why we have become willing to accept so much illness and death.”

Susan M. Reverby

Disposable masks hanging from IV stand

Wisconsin Public Radio

Public health group says CDC not doing enough to protect vulnerable people

“We talk to a member of the People’s CDC, a group that argues the CDC’s response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is leaving high-risk people behind.”

Rob Ferrett

Women walking down the street wearing masks

Yahoo! News

Arguments over masks aren’t going away in 2023

“The pandemic isn’t over — and it’s not going to be over for any of us until it’s over for all of us,” People’s CDC member Dr. Zoey Thill, a New York physician, told Yahoo News. “We are only going to get through this pandemic with a collective approach.”

Alexander Nazaryan

BoingBoing

People’s CDC releases new COVID guide: “What to Do if You Have COVID”

“Here’s an informative guide that was published today by the People’s CDC, called “What to Do if You Have COVID.” As they explain, it’s “a guide for preparing for illness, preventing spread to others, managing symptoms, and recovery.” Use it to create an action plan so you’ll be ready before you or someone in your household becomes ill.”

Jennifer Sandlin

White man steering with mouth wide open

The Nation

The New Yorker Goes All In on Our Precious Bodily Fluids

“Will it all work out? Will we succeed in beating back Covid-19 more successfully than we have now, given our sorry track record compared to our G7 peers? Who knows? But not trying—or worse, arguing vociferously to just give up, while going after those still doing the work—is just morally wrong, politically bankrupt, and scientifically unsound.”

Gregg Gonsalves

Animated red and white bullhorn with mask over the front

Fair

New Yorker Takes Aim at People Who Still Think COVID Is a Problem

“The longer a crisis goes on, the more Americans become used to an alternative to “free-market” healthcare, and a new model becomes more and more normalized. PCDC is not just a response to the pandemic, but a movement that is using the crisis as a way to reimagine both healthcare and the economy. For the profiteers in this country, that’s a bad thing.”

Ari Paul

The CDC headquarters

WBUR

Health experts dissatisfied with CDC pandemic response forms ‘The People’s CDC’

“Since the early days of the pandemic, the American public has turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance on everything from mask-wearing to vaccines. But nearly three years later, a group of doctors and public health experts are dissatisfied with the CDC’s pandemic response, and they want to do something about it.”

Celest Headlee

Graphic for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, "Since 1786"

Columnist J.M. Sorrell: Resistance to reality

“The People’s CDC is a coalition of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, educators, advocates and people from all walks of life working to reduce the harmful impacts of COVID-19. They are honest about how we need to adjust our behavior with the goal of ending the pandemic. This means cooperating and caring about our fellow human beings while being rooted in reality rather than engaging in the fantasy that we can return to pre-pandemic habits.”

J.M. Sorrell

Animated red and white bullhorn with mask over the front

The New Yorker

The Case for Wearing Masks Forever

“A ragtag coalition of public-health activists believe that America’s pandemic restrictions are too lax—and they say they have the science to prove it.

Emma Green

Two women, one wearing a blue disposable mask, the other unmasked.

capradio

Tips for making holiday gatherings safer (or when to skip them)

“Here’s some advice about how to reduce risk when coming together, along with where to get tests locally and how to respond if someone in your household gets sick after a party or gathering.”

Janelle Salanga

Colored map entitled "Community Transmission in New Mexico"

KUMN

As New Mexico emphasizes at-home testing, PCR testing access is shrinking

“Musgrave also encourages people to utilize a layered prevention strategy like the People’s CDC Safer In-Person toolkit testing, masking, and looking out for each other.”

Taylor Velazquez & Jered Ebenreck

Protestors laying on the pavement in front of the white house holding signs. One sign reads " We deserve better"

TRUTHOUT

COVID Has Become Indefinite. We Need New Practices to Keep Each Other Safe.

“Hugh said that a lot of the messaging from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Biden administration has been “either you avoid COVID, and you don’t see people, or you see people, and you’ll get COVID,” which is not true.”

Meghan Krausch

Health care professional administering swab for COVID test to patient

The Atlantic

The COVID Data That Are Actually Useful Now

“Move over, case rates and hospitalizations. The next generation of COVID tracking is here.”

Betsy Ladyzhets

People gardening

capradio

New Malcolm X Academy in Oak Park continues tradition of Black Panther liberation schools

“The school is also using the Urgency of Equity toolkit from the People’s CDC, a grassroots collective aiming to reduce the harms of COVID-19, to navigate conversations about COVID-19 safety and protocol. “

Janelle Salanga

Biden speaking into a microphone wearing a clown wig

Dig Boston

For the latest pandemic info, check out the ‘People’s CDC’

“Grassroots network of researchers and frontline medical workers publicizes hard data on the ongoing coronavirus crisis; encourages political activism for science-based public health policy”

Jason Pramas

People wearing black and yellow, engaging the COVID march to remember

TruthOut

COVID Hasn’t Been Defeated, But Effective Public Health Measures Have Been

 

“In the present pandemic, it’s the powerful who are running a months-long masquerade, taking off masks ironically enough, in the face of all the evidence that the pandemic is marching on and mask mandates in combination with vaccines and other interventions can protect populations from infection.”

Rob Wallace

Woman receiving injection in bicep

Common Dreams

Pandemic Is Far From Over’: People’s CDC Tells Congress to Fund COVID Response

“You must choose a healthier, more equitable pandemic response,” the coalition wrote in a letter. “We all deserve better.”

Kenny Stancil

BoingBoing

The People’s CDC is a collective of public health practitioners, scientists, and others working to reduce the harmful impacts of COVID-19

 

“If you are still concerned about COVID and want to continue mitigation practices, but are also wary of the CDC and suspicious that its COVID maps and recommendations are influenced by corporate interests (hint: the answer is yes, they are!), then I’ve found your people.”

Jennifer Sandlin

Red stop with COVID virus graphic instead of text

The Atlantic

America is sliding into the long pandemic defeat

“In the face of government inaction, the country’s best chance at keeping the crisis from spiraling relies on everyone to keep caring”

Ed Yong

KBOO radio graphic

The People’s CDC

“After multiple retractions, garbled messages, bad advice, and politically-driven decisions from the CDC about how to respond to COVID 19, a group of public health professionals are fed up.”

Patricia Kullberg

Director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky

The Guardian

The CDC is beholden to corporations and lost our trust. We need to start our own The People’s CDC

“We’re epidemiologists, nurses and physicians, artists and biologists. We have come together with a common anger at the US government’s handling of COVID”

People’s CDC Op-Ed

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