
American Indian tribes thwarted in efforts to get coronavirus data - notRobot
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527
======
y-c-o-m-b
From down-playing the threat of COVID-19 in the early stages to the mixed
messaging on mask effectiveness and the timidly inconsistent guidelines for
managing the outbreak, I've lost trust in both the WHO and the CDC. This issue
only erodes that trust further. I fear the erosion in trust between the public
and public health agencies is causing permanent damage in our abilities to
mitigate future disasters. I have the same distrust for social services that
purportedly protect kids from abuse yet turn kids over to abusive foster
parents. There's zero accountability for the damage these events contribute to
and if you ask the people in charge they just shrug their shoulders.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
How did WHO downplay the threat of the virus?

They've pretty consistently given good advice on how to handle the outbreak,
and countries that have done the things they've emphasized (notably, test,
trace and isolate) have done well.

~~~
beamatronic
They have been worse than useless. There was a point where they told the
public that masks don’t help. And recently one of their leaders said that
“asymptotic transmission is rare” which is a deadly lie. It was retracted, but
incalculable damage is done by these mixed, inconsistent messages.

~~~
toofy
Did the WHO and CDC say “Masks will not help.” or did they say “We don't yet
know whether or not masks will help.”?

~~~
koheripbal
They specifically said "There is no evidence that mask use reduces
transmission." ...despite a 2003 SARS WHO study showing a 65% reduction in
community transmission even with basic surgical masks.

The conspiracy people say it's because they wanted to protect mask supplies -
but most people just blame incompetence.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
Which study are you referring to?

I can only find one paper by the WHO from 2003 that discusses the
effectiveness of masks in reducing transmission of SARS.[1] The paper says
that because many different social distancing and hygiene measures were taken
at the same time, it is impossible to assess how effective each individual
measure was. For example, the abstract states,

> The independent effectiveness of measures to "increase social distance" and
> wearing masks in public places requires further evaluation.

I found plenty of papers that find that mask use by healthcare workers in
hospitals is effective, but that's not the same as what you're claiming.

1\.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3329045/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3329045/)

------
seesawtron
It seems to be the case of non-recognization of tribal epidemiology centers by
the CDC as being public health organisations. Who makes this seemingly binary
decision as to which entity falls under the "public" sector or not? Shouldn't
this be already well-documented which entites fall under which jurisdiction?

"The tribal epidemiology centers were originally created to coordinate public
health efforts between tribes and state and federal agencies. And under the
Affordable Care Act, the centers are considered public health authorities on a
par with state health departments and federal agencies such as the CDC. But
Abigail Echo-Hawk, the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, told
POLITICO that the CDC has so far rebuffed the centers’ requests — telling her
only that the data is nonpublic."

~~~
ashtonkem
The US government seems to recognize tribal organizations as sovereign or not
based on their whims at the moment, usually to the tribes disadvantage.

~~~
tasogare
That’s the real systemic racism. It’s even more glaring since it happens on
their land.

~~~
redbeard0x0a
Please don't discount other other groups experiencing systemic racism. This is
another example of systemic racism, but it's not any more or less real than
systemic racism against people of color.

~~~
BasDirks
I see what you're saying, and without GP disclosing exactly what kind of
systemic racism is not "true", I agree with your objection, but it might have
been an unfortunate way of wording.

------
mehrdadn
Actual article is linked there:
[https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-
cor...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-
data-314527)

------
asfarley
I’m a Canadian citizen in Alberta. I made a freedom of information request for
some aggregate statistics, and got a response from the agency indicating that
the information wouldn’t be available for several months, allegedly due to a
“high volume of requests”.

From my perspective, if the information is delivered months after being
relevant, it’s the same as denying the request.

In general, it seems like “public institutions” don’t act like they’re
beholden to the public. They act just like private institutions whose primary
concern is self-preservation.

~~~
koheripbal
It's not like they can just take your one request and push it to the head of
the line because you say it's urgent.

Everyone gets their turn.

~~~
bonchicbongenre
That was not the original commenter's point at all. Doing things in sequence
is fine. Doing things so slowly as to be useless is not.

~~~
koheripbal
You are assuming malicious intent in the duration of the backlog - which is
not the case.

FOIA requests routinely take months and/or years.

------
082349872349872
"Federal Indian trust responsibility" seems to be the term of art. Like with
the South Dakotan governor's opinions on tribal Covid checkpoints, I'd expect
the CDC to become more cooperative after they've consulted counsel.

------
docbrown
Health data related to Native Americans is already highly undercounted and
incomplete as compared to other groups. This continued surpression of their
ways of living is sad to watch. When NA’s already have little trust in Western
medicine, this action by the CDC will do nothing more than erode that
relationship further.

