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Transcript:
Public Health for the People
Zoey Thill, MD, MPH, MPP

The CDCs pastel green map creates the false impression that the pandemic is over.

Welcome to Public Health for the People by the People’s CDC

This is a Covid map from today.
This is also a Covid map from today.

How does this happen? And which map is useful to you… a person who does not want to get or spread Covid.

This map – which is almost entirely red – represents COVID transmission per capita. The CDC creates this map by gathering COVID case numbers from local health departments. As you can see— this red hot map means lots of COVID cases. It shows that we are in a surge and that you may be pretty likely to get and/or spread Covid, especially if you’re not using any layers of protections.

But even this map *under represents* current Covid transmission. When Congress failed to renew COVID funding this past March, they withdrew financial support for uninsured people to easily access free tests. and forced many community testing centers to close.

So fewer ppl are testing, and now, those who are testing, are frequently using at-home rapid tests, which are almost never reported to health departments.

This means, things are actually somehow *even* worse than this ALL RED MAP suggests.

The CDC introduced *this* pastel “community levels” map in February. It’s the map they use on their website and on social media. This pastel map looks like we’re in the clear, and maybe the pandemic is over.

It’s not.

This map is based on calculations that they claim will let us know when COVID is overwhelming our health systems. So Instead of telling you if you are likely to get or spread Covid, this map tells you whether you could access a hospital bed, should you need it.

The problem is, that by the time this map turns pastel orange, it’s already too late to prevent tragic and avoidable deaths, chronic illness and disability from Long COVID.

At The People’s CDC, we want you to know that the community levels map masks the state of the pandemic. It pretends that COVID transmission doesn’t matter. It pretends that it’s ok for people to continue dying. And it pretends that it’s okay for people to keep getting sick - even though the CDC itself acknowledges 1 in 5 COVID cases leads to Long Covid.

We know that the impacts of COVID and the collective trauma it has caused has fallen disproportionately on certain communities: older, disabled, poor and working class, Black, Indigenous and people of color —and these communities will continue to suffer the greatest impacts of COVID-19.

Find your community transmission map, and plan accordingly: Protect yourselves and your community by wearing an N95-grade mask, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, using a hepa filter, opening windows and taking activities outside, getting tested, vaccinated and boosted and demand COVID funding and a comprehensive public health approach to ending the COVID-19 pandemic.