https://nationalpost.com/opinion/anti-lockdown-great-barrington-declaration-vindicated-but-much-too-late
Though little noted by the public, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022, was an enormously important day in the history of the pandemic. Prior to that day, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommended that anyone who came in contact with a covid positive patient quarantine for a time. For unvaccinated exposed kids, the old guidance counselled either quarantine or negative tests to return to school.
The new guidance eliminated the recommendation for testing people with no symptoms and eliminated the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in testing recommendations. The reasoning for the CDC’s shift was explicit. In describing that rationale, Greta Massetti of the CDC said, “this guidance … helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives. We know that COVID-19 is here to stay.”
The CDC’s shift represented a fundamental change in the underlying philosophy of pandemic management. Ever since March 2020 and the infamous “two weeks to slow the spread,” the CDC’s goal — not achieved — had been to reduce or eliminate the spread of the virus. The new guidance accepted the obvious fact that the containment strategy had imposed enormous collateral harm to children, small business owners, and the working class and had not protected the vulnerable against the virus. After years of zoom school, close-contact quarantines, and missed assignments, the lockdown on American kids’ education essentially ended on Aug. 11.
In its place, the CDC adopted a more pragmatic approach more in line with how it had managed the 2009 swine flu pandemic. There is a more than thousand fold higher risk of severe disease outcomes from COVID-19 for infected elderly patients than there is for children who are very rarely hospitalized or die if infected. So not unreasonably, the CDC maintained recommendations aimed at reducing disease spread in nursing homes, such as good ventilation and vigilant testing.