CDC Director: Michigan Should ‘Close Things Down’

On Monday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that the state of Michigan should “close things down” because of the number of covid-19 cases soaring there.

At the White House press briefing by the White House COVID-19 response team and public health officials, Heidi Przybyla of NBC News asked, “You know, vaccines, we understand, are not a panacea, given a crisis situation in Michigan right now.  But some public health officials, including (former FDA Commissioner) Dr. Gottlieb over the weekend, are saying that the administration probably should have surged vaccines to Michigan two weeks ago when the data started coming in.  Can you address that?  And what is the argument against doing this, as well as what specifically are you doing on monoclonal antibodies to the state?” On Sunday, on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” host Margaret Brennan had asked Gottlieb about Michigan Democrat governor Gretchen Whitmer’s request to the White House for more COVID vaccines: “What do you think of her request to the White House to surge vaccine supply? A number of health experts, the former surgeon general, for example, said this is a mistake on the White House’s part, not to deliver her the doses she says she needs.”

Gottlieb responded, “Well, look, it’s a request that’s been made for weeks now, and I think we should have done it weeks ago. It’s never too late to do it. And it’s not just additional vaccine, but it’s the resources to actually get the vaccine into arms. Some of the federal resources that FEMA has, they’re developing these mobile vans to go into communities to– to ramp up vaccination. I think we need to think about putting those resources into hotspots.”

Walensky answered Przybyla, “You know, when — there are different tools that we can use for different periods of when things are out breaking out — when there’s an outbreak. For example, we know that if vaccines go in arms today, we will not see an effect of those vaccines, depending on the vaccine, for somewhere between two to six weeks.”

“So when you have an acute situation, an extraordinary number of cases like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine,” she continued. “In fact, we know that the vaccine will have a delayed response.  The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and to shut things down, to flatten the curve, to decrease contact with one another, to test to the extent that we have available, to contact trace.  Sometimes you can’t even do it at the capacity that you need.  But, really, what we need to do in those situations is shut things down.

“I think if we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan, we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work, to actually have the impact,” she stated. “Similarly, we need that vaccine in other places.  If we vaccinate today, we will have, you know, impact in six weeks, and we don’t know where the next place is going to be that is going to surge.”

Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt chimed in, “Yeah.  So, look, our job here is to follow the science. … our ability to vaccinate people quickly in all — each of those states, rather than taking vaccines and shifting it to playing Whack-a-Mole, isn’t the strategy that public health leaders and scientists have laid out. There are other things that we can do.  We have offered to surge monoclonal antibodies, testing.  There’s a CDC team on the ground.  We just sent — 140 FEMA vaccinators have just moved into the (inaudible).  Those are things you can affect quickly and we believe can ramp things up more quickly.”

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