Covid-19 Oversight News: Updated CDC Guidance, New Federal Oversight Reports, and the Struggle to Reach Herd Immunity

American Oversight’s Covid-19 Oversight Hub provides news and policy resources to help you keep track of investigations into the government’s pandemic response. The project brings together a public documents database, an oversight tracker of important ongoing investigations and litigation, regular news updates, and deeper dives into key issues. 

For the latest news on the pandemic, as well as updates on various oversight investigations, sign up for our weekly Covid-19 Oversight News email.

The Future
More than half of all American adults have now received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 100 million are fully vaccinated. But with daily vaccinations slowing and continued vaccine hesitancy, scientists and public health experts believe that widespread herd immunity — when at least 80 percent of the population is immune to the virus — may not be achieved in the foreseeable future. Experts are now focused on limiting the hospitalizations and deaths caused by Covid-19, with the long-term goal of transitioning the coronavirus to a seasonal disease, similar to the flu.   

Latest CDC Guidance

• Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rolled out new guidance easing restrictions for vaccinated people. According to the CDC, fully vaccinated individuals can now go without masks outdoors, so long as they are not in crowded venues like concerts or stadiums. 
• Updated CDC guidance to cruise lines could allow companies to resume passenger cruises departing from the U.S. by mid-July. In its letter to cruise lines, the CDC clarified previous guidelines and said it would ease requirements for ships if at least 98 percent of the crew and 95 percent of passengers are fully vaccinated. 

In the States

• In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Black communities are lagging behind in the vaccine rollout: Vaccination rates in majority-Black areas are still almost 40 percent lower than in the county at large. Nationally, the racial gap is shrinking, and California, Vermont, and Maine all increased the vaccination rate among Black populations by more than 4 percent last week.
• Last spring and summer, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s aides overruled state health officials’ attempts to release the true death toll in New York’s nursing homes for at least five months, according to the New York Times. Officials blocked the publication of a scientific paper that stated that nursing home residents had accounted for “approximately 35 percent” of all coronavirus-related deaths in New York through the end of May 2020, instead releasing a report that claimed the figure was only 21 percent.
• Multiple states, including Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Kentucky, eased mask-wearing requirements in light of the new CDC guidelines for vaccinated people.  

In the Documents

• American Oversight obtained 2,000 pages of records that illustrate the CDC’s struggles to create and implement reliable Covid-19 testing in early 2020. The documents include communications among CDC and Food and Drug Administration officials, and make clear that problems with the CDC’s testing kits were present as early as the first weeks of February. They echo earlier reporting from the Washington Post that the CDC initially sent states flawed tests that had been contaminated in the agency’s Atlanta laboratory. 
• American Oversight obtained more emails containing early warnings from top officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs, including VA senior medical adviser Carter Mecher. On March 9, 2020, Mecher wrote that “time is being frittered away” as he and other officials exchanged emails discussing the importance of instituting social distancing measures, closing in-person learning, and using clear public messaging. Other communications from this “Red Dawn” email chain, which outlined the need for early mitigation measures, were obtained by American Oversight and other outlets last spring. 

Indian Education Schools Need Assistance
Following a review, the Government Accountability Office found that the Bureau of Indian Education did not provide schools with comprehensive guidance and support to develop and implement distance learning programs during the coronavirus crisis. Further, when BIE issued a school reopening guide for the 2020–2021 school year, the guidance focused primarily on preparations for in-person instruction, despite the fact that nearly all schools were still providing distance learning during the fall of 2020. 

SIGPR Oversight Limited
In its quarterly report to Congress, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) reported that the Department of the Treasury and the Treasury Inspector General (OIG) have for months resisted oversight of several pandemic-related relief funds, claiming SIGPR lacks jurisdiction over these programs. Last week, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion agreeing with the Treasury’s narrow interpretation of SIGPR’s authority, which SIGPR argues limits its ability to conduct oversight as intended by Congress. 

Federal Oversight

• The Congressional Oversight Commission published its 12th report, which examined a national security loan to Yellow Corporation that accounted for 95 percent of total distributed pandemic national security loans. The report also provided updates on recent key actions taken by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve regarding lending programs and facilities, as well as updates on the commission’s oversight activities.
• The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee published its second semiannual report to Congress. The report outlined new PRAC developments from the past year, including the creation of a Fraud Task Force that assists inspector general offices in their investigations of pandemic-related fraud. PRAC also established the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence to conduct data analysis of pandemic relief funds.
• The GAO released a report detailing changes in the U.S. Postal Service’s mail volume, on-time performance, and revenue and expenses in 2020. The GAO found that USPS experienced a 9 percent drop in total mail volume when compared with 2019 and that the agency’s nationwide on-time performance fell in 2020.

Congressional Oversight

• Expanding Vaccine Access: Five senators wrote to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson requesting information on the companies’ plans to expand access to Covid-19 vaccines and vaccine manufacturing capacity around the world. The requests came after India reported 350,000 new Covid-19 cases in a single day.
• Investigating the CEO of Emergent BioSolutions: Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler urging his agency to investigate Robert Kramer, the president and CEO of Emergent BioSolutions, for potential insider trading. Reporting showed that Kramer sold $10 million worth of Emergent stock in early 2021 prior to the public disclosure of problems at his company’s Maryland facility, including the contamination of millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.

• OSHA’s Delay in Issuing an ETS: In a letter to President Joe Biden, 15 senators are seeking information about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s delay in issuing an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers against the spread of Covid-19. Biden previously issued an executive order calling on the Labor Department to consider whether any coronavirus-related emergency temporary standards were necessary; to date, OSHA has not issued an ETS.