The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced new, drastically weakened infection control guidance on March 1 for people with COVID-19. Instead of at least 5 days of isolation, and testing to judge when it’s safe to stop isolating, the CDC now focuses on fever and other symptoms.

When CDC staffers recently floated this approach in The Washington Post, the paper anticipated “release in April for public feedback.” But CDC implemented its radical changes on March 1st, effective immediately, with no public comment process. Perhaps our federal government hopes the public will accept the change as immutable, instead of mounting the loud rejection it deserves.

Evidence on COVID-19 transmission is clear: a substantial proportion of people transmit COVID-19 beyond 5 days of infection. For this reason, the CDC had previously recommended using two negative rapid tests, 48 hours apart, to exit isolation. Further, because much transmission of COVID – unlike flu – is asymptomatic, the new recommendation to base decisions about isolation only on fever and other symptoms are frankly unscientific.

The CDC’s new guidance reflects no new science. No new studies. No substantial new analysis of existing data. In fact, the CDC is plainly ignoring solid medical evidence. The agency’s current trajectory away from public health and in favor of a so-called “return to normal” is not new. As we wrote nearly two years ago, the CDC, since long before Biden came to office, has been bowing to corporate powers on public health matters.

This announcement comes amid a big corporate push to get people back into physical offices. Workforce shortages have left even major hospital systems like Mass General Brigham declaring a chronic overcapacity crisis. Employers are again leaning on decision makers to prioritize the economy, today. What they’re ignoring is that disability numbers have been rising since 2020, likely a result of long COVID-19. They’re ignoring that intra-office transmission of COVID-19, a result of already insufficient workplace protections, leads to repeated episodes of short staffing levels. To address workforce shortages, we need mandated universal paid sick leave and funding for long COVID-19 prevention and treatments, among other population interventions. We do not need more people spreading COVID-19 at work.

But some people, including “experts” cited in the Washington Post article that floated the policy change, argue the already insufficient 5-day isolation policy should be dropped because public health guidelines are supposedly “too hard” to follow. This tactic is old: Big Tobacco PR once claimed it would be too hard to ban smoking in public buildings.

The truth is that the science would be easy to follow if the US had good paid sick leave policies, support programs for people needing to isolate, and workplace protections that minimize COVID spread. It’s far past time that the CDC and the Biden administration make public health policy that truly “follows the science” rather than catering to donors and heavily propagandized focus groups.

The new guidance treats COVID-19 like influenza or RSV, despite evidence that even in a post-Omicron and post-vaccination world, COVID remains far more dangerous. Since the end of December, 2000 people died from COVID-19 each week, even with the gross undercounts we see since the CDC has transitioned to the use of “provisional death data.” The flu on the other hand, is both more predictable (it is entirely seasonal) and far less harmful. This flu season, deaths never topped ¼ of COVID-19 deaths, and COVID has continued to kill people year-round. And while we understand fully that viruses have long contributed to disabling post-viral conditions like ME/CFS, nothing seems to touch the rate at which COVID disables: 1 in 9 infected people suffers from long COVID-19 symptoms. 6 million children are currently suffering from long COVID-19.

Every person should be concerned. While the CDC reports COVID-19 is only severe for “vulnerable people,” its actual list of people that are considered “high risk” for severe COVID complications is extensive. The list includes anyone with a BMI over 30, anyone over the age of 50, anyone with depression, current and former smokers, anyone currently or recently pregnant, anyone “physically inactive,” and anyone with any one of a long list of medical conditions including (but not limited to) cancer, kidney disease, chronic lung diseases, asthma, diabetes, and dementia. Nearly all of us fit at least one of these categories. Risk is wide-spread.

But, even if only a small proportion of vulnerable people needed to worry, we would still object to the CDC’s move to reduce isolation periods. What kind of a society sacrifices our most vulnerable community members so CEOs can continue to nickel and dime employees out of paid sick leave? Who decided that the isolation and death of our disabled and elderly members is acceptable?

We must connect dots. This push for workers to work sick, this proposal in defiance of public safety, comes from the same industry-first leadership that wants us to look away while Israel massacres nearly 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza with U.S. weapons and support. The same industry players also worked immediately in opposition to pandemic protections, misled us about plastic recycling they knew was not a real solution, and now seek to undermine freedom of speech and consolidate corporate influence on university campuses.

We at the People’s CDC are trying to push for an alternative approach: one based in scientific reality and on love and commitment to community. We know that when given accurate information about how to protect each other, people rise to the occasion. The CDC’s own scientists confirmed this in a 2022 MMWR Report – and the large numbers of protestors wearing N95-grade masks at protests and meetings for Palestine confirm this. There is much more we can do when we “invest in life,” and reframe policymaking and grassroots organizing around community care.

We all have a lot of trauma about the pandemic. But our trauma will not be resolved by pretending the threat is gone. Instead, we need to urge our government leaders to adopt a clear public health approach to the pandemic which puts the most vulnerable people first. This would include communicating the well-documented risks of COVID-19 and long COVID-19 to the public. It would include reinstating public funding for widespread PCR and at-home testing and support for air-detection devices. It would include regularly-updated vaccines, universal access to treatments for COVID-19, and adequate funding for long COVID-19 research, clinical trials and treatments. It would include improving workplace safety guidance, with enforceable indoor air quality regulations. It would include funding for ventilation upgrades in public spaces. Four years into this pandemic, it’s time that we recognized our collective power to win what we need to survive. Our future is on the line.

The People’s CDC is a volunteer collective of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, educators, advocates and everyday people.