Home Coronavirus Coverage Can Colleges Rely on the CDC? – Inside Higher Ed

Can Colleges Rely on the CDC? – Inside Higher Ed

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Colleges rely on guidance from a federal health agency that is operating, as one public health expert put it, “with two hands tied behind its back.”

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, college leaders have looked to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance and have pointed to their adherence to CDC recommendations to assure students and employees they are reopening responsibly. But reports of political interference in the public health agency’s scientific processes over the past month are raising discomforting questions of whether and to what degree colleges can trust the CDC.

Some public health experts say the agency’s guidelines for higher education institutions have lacked specificity in some areas and left too much to the discretion of individual states and institutions, resulting in inconsistencies in approaches to opening and closing decisions and testing and quarantining protocols across the country.

“On the one hand, it is true that there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all solution because colleges are so different and are located in different areas and you want to allow for innovation to occur,” said Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

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