Northwest labor press., May 21, 2021, Page 5, Image 5

NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | May 21, 2021 | PAGE 5
Nurse union condemns CDC rollback of COVID-19 protection
National Nurses United (NNU),
AFL-CIO, is condemning new
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) guidance that
fully vaccinated people no
longer needed to wear masks,
avoid crowds or large gather-
ings, and no longer needed to
isolate after exposure or get
tested unless they develop
symptoms.
“This newest CDC guidance
is not based on science, does not
protect public health, and threat-
ens the lives of patients, nurses,
and other frontline workers
across the country,” said NNU
Executive Director Bonnie
Castillo, RN. “Now is not the
time to relax protective meas-
ures, and we are outraged that
the CDC has done just that
while we are still in the midst of
the deadliest pandemic in a cen-
tury.”
The union said CDC issued
the new guidance even though
the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA)
emergency temporary standard
mandated by President Joe
Biden’s Jan. 21 executive order
has been delayed for months.
“This lack of protection com-
pounds the dangers that nurses
and other essential workers con-
tinue to face on the job,”
Castillo said.
NNU’s concerns with the
new guidance include:
■ A continued high number of COVID-19
cases in the United States, with more than
35,000 new detected infections reported
each day, and more than 600 people
dying from COVID-19 each day.
■ Circulation of COVID-19 variants of
concern that are more transmissible,
deadlier, and may already be or may
become vaccine resistant.
■ Unanswered questions about vaccines.
Nurses emphasize that it’s unclear how
well vaccines prevent asymptomatic and
mild COVID-19 infections, how well
vaccines prevent transmission of the virus,
and how long protection from vaccines
will last.
■ The CDC announced they would no longer
be tracking infections among fully
vaccinated people unless they result in
hospitalization or death. This means that
the CDC is no longer tracking data
necessary to understand whether vaccines
prevent asymptomatic/ mild infections,
how long vaccine protection may last, and
to understand how variants impact
vaccine protection.
■ The CDC “recognized” scientific evidence
on aerosol transmission but refused to
update guidance based on science. NNU
says the CDC needs to fully recognize
aerosol transmission and update its
COVID-19 guidance accordingly to
prioritize measures that prevent and
reduce aerosol transmission (ventilation,
respiratory protection, testing to identify
asymptomatic cases).
■ Preventing and reducing transmission of
COVID-19 requires multiple layers of
protective measures. NNU says this
includes masks, distancing, and avoiding
crowds and large gatherings—in
addition to vaccines. Importantly, it also
includes protecting nurses and other
frontline workers from workplace exposure
to the virus. Vaccines are only one
important component of a robust, public
health infection control program.
“All of our protective meas-
ures should remain in place, in
addition to vaccines. This pan-
demic is not over,” said NNU
President Deborah Burger, RN.
“Nurses follow the precaution-
ary principle, which means that
until we know for sure some-
thing is safe, we use the highest
level of protections, not the low-
est. The CDC is putting lives at
risk with this latest guidance.”
NNU said the new CDC
guidance underlines the impor-
tance of OSHA issuing a long
overdue OSHA emergency tem-
porary standard (ETS) on infec-
tious diseases without delay.
“If OSHA does not issue a
COVID ETS immediately, we
will undoubtedly see more un-
necessary, preventable infec-
tions and deaths, as well as long
Covid cases among nurses and
other frontline workers,” Cortez
said.
“If the CDC had fully recog-
nized the science on how this
deadly virus is transmitted, this
new guidance would never have
been issued,” said NNU Presi-
dent Jean Ross, RN.
HAD YOUR SHOT?
Treat yourself the Ethical Way!
When you were a kid, did your doctor ever give you a lollipop
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