March 28, 2022 - Epoch Times
17:09
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| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about data. | |
| According to a new, relatively bombshell report, which came out of the New York Times, of all places, it turns out that the CDC has been withholding a large swath of data from the general public. | |
| In fact, according to this report, the CDC has been collecting detailed COVID hospitalization information for the past year. | |
| And this data, it breaks down the cases by age, by race, as well as by vaccination status. | |
| However, instead of releasing all this information to the general public, well, instead, the CDC has been withholding most of it. | |
| And what's even more damning is that according to this report, it appears that the CDC was not keeping all this information in a vault. | |
| Instead, they were selectively, purposefully pushing out only the information which was supposed to make their messaging regarding boosters that much stronger. | |
| Here's specifically what this report said in these regards. | |
| "When the CDC published the first significant data "on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65 "two weeks ago, it left out the numbers "for a huge portion of that population, 18 to 49-year-olds, "the group least likely to benefit from extra shots "because the first two doses "already left them well-protected." And so you see what they did there. | |
| They released information regarding the booster shots for those who are younger than 65. | |
| But they omitted the data for those who are between the ages of 18 to 49. | |
| Meaning that while you thought you were looking at the efficacy data for everyone below the age of 65, And you might have thought that, hey, this data looks pretty good, it looks fairly effective. | |
| But what you didn't know was that the CDC was only providing you the data for those who are aged between 50 to 65. | |
| Everyone below the age of 50 was not represented, and that naturally made the booster seem more effective than it likely really was. | |
| And besides just misrepresenting the booster shots, well, a lot of this withheld information could have actually significantly helped both the state and local governments across the country in making public health decisions. | |
| Because just as an example, if the local officials had the detailed breakdown of COVID hospitalizations by age, by race and by vaccination status, well, they could have better identified the small pockets of populations that were more at risk and then allocated their resources accordingly, allocated those resources specifically to the most at risk groups. allocated those resources specifically to the most at risk groups. | |
| However, they were not able to do that because the CDC was now forthcoming with this information. | |
| Here's in fact how this report described the implications of the CDC now releasing the data. | |
| Quote, two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country's response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected. | |
| Much of the withheld information could help state and local health officials better target their efforts to bring the virus under control. | |
| Detailed timely data on hospitalizations by age and race would help health officials identify and help the populations at highest risk. | |
| Information on hospitalizations and death by age and vaccination status would have helped inform whether healthy adults needed booster shots. | |
| And what's even more revealing here is the reason that the CDC gave as to why they decided to hide the data. | |
| Because that reason, sadly, it reveals the fact that the CDC is not only in the business of informing the public about science, data, and research, But also, it appears that they have political and policy considerations in mind. | |
| Here's specifically what the spokeswoman for the CDC said to the New York Times. | |
| Let me just reread that. | |
| a fear that the information might be misinterpreted. | |
| Think about that for a quick moment. | |
| The CDC is hiding valuable data from me and you, from the public, because they claim that this data might be misinterpreted, likely by critics of vaccine mandates and other COVID restrictions. | |
| And so instead of releasing all the data and then making their own arguments about what that data actually means, well, it looks like they've instead taken the same approach as big tech and just decided to shut down debate altogether, which is frankly, at least in my view, one of the main reasons that organizations like the CDC have lost a lot of the public trust in one of the main reasons that organizations like the CDC have lost In fact, there was a recent poll which found that only 44% of Americans actually trust what the CDC has to say about COVID. And with stories like this one here, well, it's pretty obvious why. | |
| And in fact, this reminds me of how all the way back at the beginning of the pandemic, you had Dr. | |
| Fauci, who was saying that masks were not necessary and don't really do much. | |
| But when a few weeks went by, he totally changed his tune and he began to say that masks were extremely necessary and that everyone in the entire country should be wearing them. | |
| And when he was later asked why, why he totally shifted his stance, well, here was Dr. Fauci's answer. | |
| The public health experts were concerned, the public health community and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. | |
| We wanted to make sure that the people, namely the healthcare workers, who are brave enough to put themselves in harm's way to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected. | |
| And so what that means is that one of the main reasons that Dr. | |
| Fauci told the public to not wear masks was that so we would not run out of a limited supply of them for healthcare workers. | |
| Which, I mean, frankly, that is a fine consideration for a politician. | |
| But for a public health expert, who people are actually turning to for scientific and health advice... | |
| Well, it's likely episodes like that one, which have resulted in only 31% of Americans actually trusting what Dr. | |
| Fauci says in regards to his COVID advice. | |
| And now we're seeing the same thing play out here with the CDC, wherein they are hiding the data in order to push forward what they likely believe to be the greater good. | |
| Now, these revelations from the CDC, they've actually stunned some outside public health experts who were rather surprised to hear that this information actually exists. | |
| Here's, for instance, what Dr. | |
| Jessica Rivera, who is an epidemiologist as well as a part of that team which ran the COVID tracking project back in 2021, well, here's what she said in the matter. | |
| We have been begging for that sort of granularity for data for two years. | |
| A detailed analysis builds public trust and it paints a much clearer picture of what's actually going on. | |
| We are at a much greater risk of misinterpreting the data with data vacuums than sharing the data with proper science, communication, and caveats. | |
| And by the way, I'd like to mention that because we live in America, of course, the CDC is the most relevant agency to us. | |
| But similar situations are actually playing out across the entire Western world. | |
| As an example, over in Scotland, their public health agency has likewise decided to stop releasing COVID data in order to protect the public from reaching bad conclusions. | |
| Let me just repeat that for you. | |
| Public Health Scotland, or PHS, which is their equivalent to our CDC, they have become so irate about critics using their own data to oppose either the mandates or the COVID policies in general, that they are simply not going to be releasing any data anymore. | |
| Now, the surface reason for why the PHS is giving forward this decision is that they say anti-vaxxers are utilizing this data to make arguments against the mandates. | |
| Here's what one Scottish health official was quoted as saying. | |
| The case rates, hospitalization rates, the death rates are very simple statistics and critics are misreading the data inappropriately and sometimes willfully. | |
| Now more specifically, this decision by the PHS to begin hiding this data, it came soon after critics began to note that for the first time, the rate of COVID cases among vaccinated and boosted individuals had actually overtaken those of the unvaccinated. | |
| But here's where things actually got interesting. | |
| Because when critics began to look at this data and make their arguments, the PHS, they actually came out and said that there were several different reasons for this shift in case rates and that none of those reasons supported this anti-vaccine stance. | |
| For instance, the health officials, they said that those who are vaccinated were being tested much more frequently for COVID and that generally people overestimated how large the unvaccinated population actually was. | |
| That was their official argument for why the COVID case rates were higher for vaccinated people versus the unvaccinated. | |
| And frankly, it doesn't really matter what you or I think about this issue. | |
| What matters is that you and me were able to read both sides of the argument, and then we were able to read the interpretations of the data and then make up our own conclusions as to what we believe. | |
| That's what free speech is all about. | |
| It's about open and public debate. | |
| And especially with policies that impact every single one of our lives, well, I feel that both citizens like you and me, as well as public health experts, they should be allowed access to all the data so that they can analyze it for themselves and express their views. | |
| But that is of course, just my opinion. | |
| And actually, it's in fact also the opinion of Mr. | |
| James Madison, who is not only one of America's founding fathers, but he was also our fourth president, and he once famously wrote this, A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. | |
| Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. | |
| And so whether this is a prologue to a farce or a tragedy is still to be determined. | |
| Regardless, if you'd like to read more about either the PHS over in Scotland or about our very own CDC, well, I'll throw all those links into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
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| Sorry. | |
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| And now Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| And now, let's shift gears just a little bit and talk about the CDC's latest guidance on school masking. | |
| Now, you might remember that at the start of this month, at the start of February, Dr. | |
| Rochelle Walensky, who is the director of the CDC, she came out and endorsed universal school mask mandates. | |
| Here's specifically what she said on February the 8th, which is exactly two weeks ago now. | |
| Quote, And what's interesting to note is that when she made that announcement two weeks ago, she avoided naming any specific benchmark that would need to be reached in order for the mask mandate she avoided naming any specific benchmark that would need to be reached in Here's specifically what Dr. | |
| Walensky said when she was asked about it by reporters, asked specifically about what benchmark would need to be met in order for the CDC to lift the universal masking guidance. | |
| Quote... | |
| There will come a time when we move from a phase of crisis to a point where COVID-19 is not disrupting our daily lives. | |
| We are, of course, taking a close look at this in real time, and we're evaluating rates of transmission as well as rates of severe outcomes as we look at updating and reviewing our guidance. | |
| Which is frankly a very long-winded way of not giving a concrete answer. | |
| Regardless though, that was two weeks ago. | |
| And at this very moment, well, we are seeing a steep decline in both the number of cases as well as the number of COVID hospitalizations. | |
| And so the big question is whether the CDC is ready to change their guidance. | |
| And it looks like they are not. | |
| Dr. | |
| Walensky came out and again, she once again said that they are not changing their masking guidance as of yet, despite the lowered number of cases and hospitalizations. | |
| However, that does not mean that the CDC is not changing anything. | |
| In fact, the CDC is changing something. | |
| What are they changing? | |
| Well, last week, the CDC officially lowered their standards of childhood speech development. | |
| That's right, the CDC issued new guidance for measuring speech development in children, which, just for your reference, is often seen as a proxy for measuring mental progress in kids. | |
| And according to their update, which you can find over on their official website, the CDC added two new child development milestones at 15 and 30 months. | |
| And for your reference, prior to the pandemic and prior to the mask mandates, children who were 24 months were expected to know about 50 words. | |
| However, in the new update, the CDC has raised the time period to 30 months, which is sadly a tacit acknowledgement that children are developing their speech that much slower. | |
| Now, in terms of why specifically they decided to make this change and push this milestone back, well, in the update, the CDC added a link to a research study which was published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and here's an abstract from that study. | |
| Quote, Application of the criteria established by the American Academy of Pediatrics Working Group and adding milestones for the 15- and 30-month health supervision visits resulted in a 26.4% reduction and 40.9% replacement of previous CDC milestones. | |
| One-third of the retained milestones were transferred to different ages. | |
| 67.7% of those transferred were moved to older ages. | |
| Now, of course, the language in that was a little bit technical, but according to the author of that AAP study, Ms. | |
| Jennifer Zubler, she said that since many children were unable to reach the previous milestones, what the CDC did is that they moved their milestones, they updated them to ensure that at least 75% of kids were able to achieve them. | |
| That is a very cool way of solving the problem, sort of like how high schools across the entire country saw plunging graduation rates, and instead of looking at the education system and solving the problems in the classroom, they instead lowered the graduation threshold. | |
| And likewise, here with the CDC, instead of addressing the root cause of the delay in childhood speech development, well, they instead lowered the threshold. | |
| And also, it's worth noting that according to Dr. | |
| Nicole Safir, who is a Fox News medical contributor, she drew an interesting parallel between the CDC quietly lowering their speech standards and from an incident that happened last summer, in the summer of 2021, when the American Academy of Pediatrics began to delete stuff from their website about the importance of facial recognition in childhood development, while also, at the same time, pushing masks on children. | |
| Again, it's very hard to follow the science when the institutions that we rely on for information are not willing to provide unbiased data. | |
| Regardless, if you'd like to read more about what's happening with the CDC in regards to these kids and these new regulations, I'll throw the article into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment, if you haven't already, to smash, smash, smash that like button for these algorithms. | |
| And now, since you've completed this episode of Facts Matter, I would highly recommend that you go on over to Epic TV and check out a phenomenal movie that we premiered just yesterday called Washington's Armor. | |
| Here's a trailer. | |
| Where, madam, do you get your facts? | |
| Just in your journal, sir. | |
| It is all in your journal. | |
| Some would happen to believe today that all of this is the work of chance and not that of divine providence. | |
| They butchered him in front of his wife and children so that no perpetual nor Indian not loyal to the French would dare venture to go where you and the governor would have us go. | |
| Many in the House believe your trip to the French Commandants to be theatrics, to induce public sentiment both here and abroad for war. | |
| How, George, do you respond to this indictment that some would say to be unreasonable reasoning in the age of reason, sir? | |
| If you'd like to check out that awesome movie, as well as all the other great content over on Epic TV, I'll throw a link to it. | |
| It'll be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you click on it. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| I hope you subscribe. | |
| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful, beautiful world through honest journalism that is based in truth and tradition. | |
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| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. |
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