Twenty years ago, I had some vague sense that there was a Centers for Disease Control that performed traditional public-health functions. It tracked diseases. It made health recommendations. It served as a clearinghouse for data and information on a subject that has been crucial to modern life for the better part of a century. It helped guard the general health of the country and assisted people with authoritative advice.
That was the idea. Then last year happened. The CDC – budget of $12 billion with 15,000 employees – suddenly assumed an outsized role due to the arrival of the respiratory virus SARS-CoV-2 (the US was largely spared the 1.0 version). It was no longer about disease as such. The bureaucracy that people had previously found innocuous became the decisive voice regarding a range of issues that affect your own freedoms.
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