A group calling themselves the “People’s CDC” are calling on federal and local governments to put mask mandates back in place, claiming that “a lot of anti-mask sentiment is deeply embedded in white supremacy.”
An activist group calling themselves the "People's CDC" are calling on all levels of government to reenact mask mandates, claiming that "the vaccine-only strategy promoted by the CDC is insufficient," according to a profile by the New Yorker.
The group has made it their mission to distribute widely what they claim to be "real" information about the pandemic, often going against CDC recommendations. The article, titled "The Case for Wearing Masks Forever, written by Emma Green and published Wednesday, describes the People's CDC as a "ragtag coalition of public-health activists" who "believe that America’s pandemic restrictions are too lax."
The group sends out a weekly "Weather Report," as they call it, which gives a summary of the data they want to publish to support their case. These reports often include a call to action for readers to petition governments to reinstate mask mandates and to fight for free tests and treatments.
They have recently argued that all events should be held outdoors with high-grade masking rules in place.
With nearly 20,000 Instagram followers, the group prides itself as a resource for people who want to petition their governments for more Covid restriction.
The organizer of the group's media team, Lucky Tran, recently argued on Twitter that "a lot of anti-mask sentiment is deeply embedded in white supremacy," the kind of accusation that is quite commonly seen coming from far-left activist groups.
"Saying 'we can't mask anymore, because at some point we have to get back to normal' is racist," Tran tweeted last month.
In August, the group accused the CDC of being eugenicists, claiming that its policies were comparable to encouraging selective breeding. Eugenic policies were a central part of the Nazi's plan to purify the human race, and have a long and ugly history associated with white supremacy.
"Just because a charge is difficult or impactful doesn't make it a wrong charge," the group said.
Despite continuing to lobby for universal masking, arguing that one-way masking is insufficient, experts in airborne transmission have stated that it is actually strongly protective for vulnerable people.
One of the experts who has advocated for scaling back mask mandates, former health commissioner of Baltimore Dr. Leana Wen, has had her views on the topic described as "unscientific, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical" by the People's CDC.
The group even went so far as to petition the American Public Health Association to kick her off the panel at their annual meeting.
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