The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has overcounted the number of Americans who have been partially vaccinated by counting booster shots as well as second doses.
It is worrying to see the practical consequences of the CDC’s incompetence. Many millions more Americans are likely to have not received a single shot of the vaccine, and may not have been vaccinated. It also points to the dysfunction and chaos at the CDC when they were desperately needed for their expertise to navigate the pandemic.
The CDC revised last week the percentage of 65-year-olds who were partially vaccinated to 95% from 99%, according to the report. Bloomberg reports that the raw shot numbers were not affected by the alteration.
Local and state officials believe that the problem is caused by the fragmentation of the U.S. health system. There is no central control to simplify record-keeping. However, lack of centralization isn’t the problem. It is a lack of competence. Pennsylvania has already lowered its total number of fully vaccinated adults by 500,000.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that 73.7% of commonwealth residents aged 18 and older had reached this mark. That number was revised to 68.9% on Wednesday, the day prior to the holiday weekend — an increase of more than 488,000 adults.
It is not clear how this error occurred. Pennsylvania’s health department transmits its data to CDC. However, the state claims it continues to refine and remove duplicate information. This was a process that began in July.
One might expect revisions to be less than 1%. However, Pennsylvania’s numbers fell by more than 5%!
These errors are not minor. This makes it questionable whether the CDC record-keepers are now in the computer age. Perhaps they still use abacuses.
The CDC may be living up to every expectation that we have about government workers. They have many competent, dedicated, and intelligent people there. There are also many clockwatchers and dullards, many of whom are in high-ranking positions.
Some government workers don’t have the opportunity to make it in private industry. However, it is worth asking if the CDC doesn’t have a high representation in this category.
