n this February 20, 2022 article for The New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli reports that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been withholding data it has been collecting about the COVID “pandemic” for fear of it being misinterpreted.

According to Mandavilli, “Much of the withheld information could help state and local health officials better target their efforts to bring the virus under control”.

Kristin Nordlund, spokesperson for the CDC said in response: “the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

Some of the important data withheld by the CDC include:

• the effectiveness of boosters in adults 18-49 years, the group least likely to benefit from the extra shots,
• data on breakthrough infections, because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective,
• hospitalization data broken down by vaccination status
• proportion of children who are hospitalized for COVID who have other medical conditions
• contagiousness of a person infected with COVID five days after the symptoms began

Editor’s Note: Is “fear of misinterpretation” a valid reason for withholding data that could have helped state and local health officials make better decisions for their pandemic policies?

We echo Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist quoted in Mandavilli’s article, who said, that detailed analysis “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on”.

This action has just shown us just how much the US government mistrusts its citizens. Could this also be the reason why the FDA wants to withhold Pfizer trial data for 75 years? [Read FDA Now Wants 75 Years to Release Pfizer Vaccine Documents, not just 55 Years].

Did the CDC think that if it gets revealed that they have withheld data, their credibility will improve? No matter how you look at this, it always comes back to the same conclusion. Neither the government nor citizens benefitted when CDC withheld important data from the public. Now the question is: why did they do it? Were they simply covering up for their mistakes, or were they withholding the information in an effort to promote a specific narrative for citizens to believe?

This discovery is truly concerning for us here in the Philippines as a majority of our pandemic policies are based on the information being released by the CDC. Can this mean that our own government is also withholding data from us?

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