CBS News: As highly transmissible Omicron subvariant spreads, what do Americans need to know?
The World Health Organization said the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 is continuing to fuel a rise in COVID-19 cases in 18 European countries. Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director and the president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, explained to CBS News how concerned the U.S. should be about a new wave.
Today: Has the COVID-19 pandemic made the world more prepared for the future
Two years ago this week, the world changed after the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic. After two years of living through COVID-19, have we learned important lessons that will help us be better prepared for future diseases? NBC’s Dr. John Torres talked with Dr. Tom Frieden on this week’s Sunday Spotlight.
Delay in COVID-19 vaccines for kids upset parents. Experts say it was the right thing to do.
Many parents were disappointed when the Food and Drug Administration decided this month to postpone consideration of COVID-19 vaccines for kids under 5.
Politico: Nowhere is safe: Record number of patients contracted Covid in the hospital in January
Shama Cash-Goldwasser, senior technical adviser at Resolve to Save Lives, a group run by former CDC director Tom Frieden that aims to prevent epidemics, said it’s impossible for hospitals to bring transmission to zero, particularly when facilities are crowded and staff are overwhelmed as they have been during Covid-19 surges. “It’s unfortunate,” she said. “I’m not saying it’s OK … Immunocompromised patients and very sick people are at very high risk of poor outcomes, so transmission inside a hospital can really be devastating.”
CNN: The US still isn’t getting Covid-19 data right
“Lack of accurate, real-time information was one of the greatest failures of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March 2021.
New York Times: Biden’s Pandemic Fight: Inside the Setbacks of the First Year
Experts like Dr. Tom Frieden, the C.D.C. director under Mr. Obama, have predicted three possible scenarios ahead: that the nation reaches a kind of truce with the virus, with clusters of outbreaks; that the virus weakens to a threat more akin to a common cold; or that, in the worst case, a variant emerges that combines the contagiousness of Omicron with the virulence of Delta.
Dr. Frieden said the White House must plan for them all. Some former Biden advisers have called for the president to plan for the “new normal” — and accept that Covid-19 is here to stay.
The New York Times: The C.D.C.’s New Challenge? Grappling With Imperfect Science
The recommendations for isolation are “basically correct,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who led the agency under President Barack Obama. “The problem is, they were not explained.”
CDC Director Aims to Improve Covid-19 Messaging, Data Collection
“We have decades of underinvestment in information systems,” said Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director from 2009 to 2017. Dr. Frieden is now president of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit initiative that works on strengthening epidemic preparedness.
Boston Globe: After a rough first year, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tries to correct course
“In my view, they’re sensible guidelines in a very difficult situation, but they weren’t presented that way,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former CDC director in the Obama administration. “I felt like CDC kind of snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
Washington Post: CDC director, under fire for confusing guidance, seeks to reshape messaging
Former CDC Director Tom Frieden welcomed the news the agency was holding its own briefings with subject-matter experts. “These briefings are helpful in sharing what we are learning when we are learning it, explaining and providing the basis of recommendations, and answering important questions from journalists,” he said in a statement. “I hope this will be an inflection point in rebuilding confidence in CDC.”