Biden’s CDC must make COVID data public

In the absence of full disclosure, one can only theorize. One can only ask what unfavored, heterodox conclusions the data might point to that are causing so much angst in Biden’s appointees.

What does President Joe Biden have against science? Why is he afraid of data?

The question may sound strange or unfair, but it becomes immediately appropriate given the news that Biden’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been refusing to release granular data about coronavirus-related topics despite collecting and possessing this information for more than a year now. Among other things, information is being withheld about those getting booster shots, about the effectiveness of shots for certain age groups, and for cases of COVID reinfection.

As the New York Times put it, the CDC fears that “the information might be misinterpreted.”

This determination to hide the data points to a fundamental political reality that is not just true of COVID. Democrats and liberals especially love to talk a big game about science and data — even in their yard signs. But they would much sooner reject data and science altogether than accept the inconvenient conclusions they often force upon those with open minds. Liberals are not so much willing to let the facts speak for themselves as they are afraid of the conclusions that the facts might cause other people to draw.

This has always been true when it comes to what science says about when human life begins and whether men can overcome their biology and become women by simply “self-identifying” as such. In general, this is a sign that their real goal has always been to control what you think, not to let the truth shine through.

But why is the CDC so afraid of scientific transparency in the case of COVID? It’s a genuinely open question that only full transparency can answer. In the absence of full disclosure, one can only theorize. One can only ask what unfavored, heterodox conclusions the data might point to that are causing so much angst in Biden’s appointees.

For example, might the data suggest that vaccination is not as useful as previously believed, at least for certain age groups and populations? Might the numbers point to a greater role for acquired natural immunity in those who already had a coronavirus infection? Are there nuances that should be applied to the government’s ham-handed, one-size-fits-all message on vaccination?

Do the data upset someone’s dogma about the efficacy of mask mandates or business lockdowns? Do they cast doubt upon the idea that decades’ worth of annual shots are in the future of everyone hoping to remain healthy?

Or, knowing how the Biden administration tends to construe such things, could it be something even more absurd? Do Biden’s appointees believe that the data are ... racist? Would the numbers, broken down at the most granular level, point to uncomfortable disparities in treatment or infection — or to communities where vaccine and booster hesitation is a more prevalent problem?

Or — given that Biden and his staff frequently put political and public relations considerations first when handling major, controversial issues — it may also be that they fear the exposure of gross errors in how they have approached the problem so far. Is it possible that they have dramatically misallocated resources in dealing with the problem?

Or perhaps it is something else entirely. What if the data somehow lend additional credence to the increasingly likely (but perhaps diplomatically inconvenient) lab-leak hypothesis about the origins of the novel coronavirus and the culpability of China’s communist regime?

Perhaps none of these outlandish hypotheses are true. Or perhaps many or all of them are. The main point is that no one should have to speculate. The federal government has no mandate to treat the citizens of this country, who fund its operations with their tax dollars, like they are a bunch of children who need to be spoon-fed only “appropriate” information lest they come away with the wrong ideas.

Public health officials have already done so much in this pandemic to destroy their own expert reputations and public faith in their abilities in general. This is no time for such opaque and secretive “just-trust-us” handling of information — not if their hope is someday to resurrect the public’s faith in their work.