Despite what might be the second biggest surge of the entire pandemic, CDC director Mandy Cohen has been absent from her official CDC social media accounts.
Similarly, the CDC has yet to issue any press releases or public service announcements specifically about the JN.1 surge, which may be infecting over one million Americans each day and has killed more than 3,000 Americans in the past two weeks alone — likely a significant undercount, as death reports are delayed. Nearly 10,000 people died worldwide in December from Covid-19. While hospitalizations have been lower than previous surges, Long Covid remains a common, disabling outcome that already impacts millions of Americans. We also know it can be fatal.
Health experts, advocates, and members of the public have pointed out Cohen’s absence in public health messaging from her official social media accounts during the surge, leading to the #WhereIsMandy hashtag on social media. Users made memes from the hashtag with a photo of the director on the side of a milk carton or screenshots of “Where is Waldo?” illustrations. One social media user made a graph that tracked wastewater data alongside her posts on Twitter/X, showing the frequency of her posts going down as levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater ascended.
As the CDC and the Biden administration continue to ignore the surge and the concerning research coming out about Long Covid, many organizers and members of the public have had to step up to provide information and resources about the continuing pandemic. Scientists and advocates have disseminated graphs based on wastewater data and social media infographics about the current wave, while mutual aid groups distribute much-needed supplies like high-quality respirators. The CDC’s communications have also paled in comparison to the World Health Organization, which has sounded the alarm about JN.1’s global impacts.
“There have been too many deaths that could have been avoided because of the government and CDC’s lack of communication and action during the past few weeks,” said Sarah, an organizer of Philly Mask Bloc, a mutual aid group that distributes high-quality respirators in the Philadelphia area. “And it’s now regular citizens’ responsibility to keep their communities safe.”
The Sick Times reached out to the CDC on January 12 about Cohen’s absence on socials and the lack of CDC communication during the surge. A spokesperson for the center responded the same day and wrote, “Over the past two weeks Dr. Cohen has done several phone, radio, and on-camera interviews with national and local news media talking about respiratory illness in the U.S.”
The spokesperson included links to articles from the past two weeks in which Cohen was quoted, as well as an appearance for The Bert Show, a morning radio show and podcast. In a segment on January 8 titled, “The Director Of The CDC Joins Us To Explain What Sickness Is Currently Spreading,” she discusses a rise in respiratory viruses and “stomach bugs,” but does not mention the current surge of the JN.1 “Pirola” variant, which may cause gastrointestinal symptoms.
“Are you staying home while you’re sick?” Cohen said on the show, “That’s the hardest one for me. You don’t want to miss anything, you gotta get to work, you gotta pick up the kids, all the things.” She advised staying home if symptomatic, vaccination, hand washing, hand sanitizer, testing, and covering your mouth when coughing in public. She did not mention masking in high-quality respirators despite SARS-CoV-2 being an airborne virus — and despite many hospitals and first responder organizations reinstating mask mandates — nor the importance of rest following Covid-19 infection.
While Covid-19 has been characterized as a respiratory disease, research has shown that it impacts more organ systems and is more deadly than other viruses like the flu and RSV. Some scientists have suggested Covid-19 should, in fact, be classified as a multisystemic disease, to better recognize the burden it carries for long-term health outcomes.
On The Bert Show, Cohen minimized Long Covid as a “longer sickness,” despite her agency publishing data last week that showed that more than 5,000 people have died of Long Covid, likely a vast undercount. The disease has disabled millions of Americans for years, has no cure, and can lead to other lifelong diseases and conditions. Cohen also neglected to mention that repeated infections of Covid-19 are dangerous.
There have been too many deaths that could have been avoided because of the government and CDC’s lack of communication and action during the past few weeks.
sarah, philly mask bloc
The Sick Times sent questions to the CDC spokesperson at 3:20 PM EST on January 12. Cohen later retweeted a CDC post that was published 5:14 PM EST that same day, her first retweet or post since December 29. She shared the CDC’s respiratory virus update, which stated: “COVID-19 continues to cause a larger number of hospitalizations and has been involved in many more deaths than flu and RSV combined.”
Noha Aboelata, a family doctor and CEO of the Roots Community Health Center in Oakland, California said that throughout the surge it has been “crickets” from the CDC and White House, while the World Health Organization (WHO) has provided direct messaging. “The WHO has sounded the alarm about the magnitude of Covid infection and the risk of reinfection,” she said, “The organization has also warned about the surge’s potential for new variants to emerge as well as the burden of Long Covid.”
In a news briefing last week, WHO Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, “The public health risk from Covid remains high. The circulation of SARS-CoV-2 is actually two to 19 times higher than what is being reported.” On December 31, Van Kerkhove similarly reminded the world that Covid is a global health threat and is “still a pandemic.”
She also warned about the risk of reinfection, saying, “Five years, 10 years, 20 years from now, what are we going to see in terms of cardiac impairment, pulmonary impairment, neurologic impairment?”
The WHO’s decision to end the public health emergency in May 2022 drew extensive criticism and led many to erroneously believe the pandemic was over. Still, during this surge, the organization has provided frequent updates instead of rolling their eyes at questions about it, as White House press secretary Karine Jeanne-Pierre did recently during a White House press briefing.
This contempt comes from an administration that said it would “follow the science” and ran on a campaign to control the spread of the coronavirus. But as Steven W. Thrasher wrote in The Guardian in 2022, the administration “failed its Covid test” when the enormous first Omicron wave — the largest of the pandemic — crashed on the country during the winter of 2021-22. The administration has overseen over 750,000 deaths from Covid-19 since taking office in 2021.
The CDC and White House’s failure to control and educate the public has likely led to a bigger surge, meaning more deaths and disability, said Sarah, the Philly Mask Bloc organizer, who asked to be referred to by their first name. Sarah’s mutual aid organization has provided thousands of high-quality respirators like N95s to Philadelphians, helping to curb Covid-19’s spread. The government and CDC director should be providing regular updates, sending Americans free high-quality respirators and tests, keeping high-quality masks in healthcare, and working to improve ventilation in hospitals, schools, and other public spaces, Sarah said.
Because of the government’s failures, Sarah said, marginalized people who are already stretched thin by the pandemic have to do the work that the government should be doing to keep Americans safe. The government, CDC, and Mandy Cohen should be providing regular updates about the surge, sending Americans free high-quality respirators and tests, and working to improve ventilation in hospitals, schools, and other public spaces, they said.
“To be silent is to be complicit,” mutual aid organizer Alyssa Piperis wrote to The Sick Times about Mandy Cohen’s lack of official communication and action during the Covid surge. She organizes with the Los Angeles-based Mask Bloc LA. “If not for the existence of Mask Bloc LA, and the countless mask blocs around the country and the world, a lot of people—particularly low-income, disabled, BIPOC, and queer people—would go without adequate masks and tests to keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe,” she wrote.
“The fact that [mask blocs] even exist speaks to how deeply our government and public health ‘authorities’ have failed us,” Piperis wrote.
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