As more Americans receive protection from natural immunity after Covid-19 infection, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has withheld the total number of infections from the public, even though it is undeniably information that belongs to the public.
For months, the CDC updated its website with information including estimates of Covid-19 infected people in the U.S.
However, prior to the Delta variant of Covid-19 spreading widely, the CDC abruptly stopped updating that information.
The last published update as of the time of this publication was May 29, almost five months ago.
At that time, CDC estimated 120.2 million people in the U.S. had been infected with Covid-19. Some scientists believe that estimate was significantly lower than the actual number. However, it still amounted to more than 1/3 of the population, which reportedly numbers approximately 330 million.
Since the Delta variant has spread widely, scientists say the number of naturally-immune is now much higher than it was on May 29. However, CDC will not tell what it is.
On October 5, when I asked a CDC representative for the updated estimate, a spokesman told me that the agency intended to release that number later in the week, which would include the estimate through September, and then would likely update it monthly thereafter.
However, three weeks later, the number still hasn’t been updated, and CDC has declined to provide the reason for withholding the information.
I also filed a FOI request for the information, but CDC did not respond to or acknowledge receipt of the request.
The number of naturally-immune is relevant because a growing body of studies says natural immunity is proving as effective or far more effective than vaccine-induced immunity.
Yet the federal government is requiring millions of naturally-immune people to get the Covid-19 vaccines.
Some public health officials contradict the body of studies, and claim that those who have recovered from Covid-19, or had asymptomatic infections, benefit even more by vaccination. However, many scientific studies, including those conducted by Pfizer and Moderna, do not show that is the case.
There appears to be an organized effort to misrepresent and overstate the benefits of vaccination for those who already have natural immunity after infection, and downplay the risk of adverse events from the vaccines.
Earlier this year, CDC scientists and officials got caught repeatedly falsely claiming that the Pfizer and Moderna studies showed a benefit to vaccination for previously-infected people. Nobody at CDC was held publicly accountable after the agency’s disinformation was revealed.
In August, Meredith Wadman falsely wrote in the journal Science that a study showed those who were infected with Covid-19 and gained natural immunity still benefitted from vaccination afterwards. When the untrue information was flagged by a reader, Science deleted it and posted a clarification.
No word on how the fabricated science could have gotten inserted in the article.Â
