We have argued for months that variant tracking must be done. However as the NY Times reports:
The White House on Friday announced an almost $2 billion plan for expanding and improving the nation’s ability to track coronavirus variants, an effort that public health experts have said is desperately needed to fight against variants that could drive another wave or potentially undermine the effectiveness of vaccines. More than half of the funding, $1 billion, would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and states to monitor those variants by examining positive virus test samples. The tracking relies on genome sequencing, in which researchers read every genetic letter in a coronavirus’s genome to find out whether the virus belongs to a known lineage or is an entirely new variant with new mutations. That money will be steered to the collection of samples and sequencing, then sharing the data with health officials and scientists, the White House said. The C.D.C. has so far leaned heavily on commercial laboratories to conduct that work.
Namely the Government is making two fatal mistakes.
1. They are relying on the CDC. The CDC has repeatedly demonstrated their gross incompetence across this pandemic. Instead using a network of commercial labs is essential and it is currently working. Why stop something that is working and give it to a demonstrably incompetent group.
2. The data should be public in a public open data set. Again no CDC. Remember the CDC grossly messed up the system to obtain vaccines. Keep them away from data. Do not limit access to select groups. In today's world, data must be open and anyone can analyze it. Government should try a little to be transparent.
This proposal is just another step in fumbling the ball. The CDC is the problem and not the solution.
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