"The president, still angry about the pandemic response, may be cutting into the country’s fundamental ability to identify emerging diseases and head them off."
"In Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was told Friday to lay off an estimated 10 percent of its staff, including nearly an entire class of “disease detectives” — the infectious-disease experts charged with helping spot the next epidemic.
In West Texas, local officials warned about the spreading risk of measles, saying that an outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease had doubled to 48 cases since early last week.
And in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on ... coronavirus vaccination mandates in schools and universities.
“President Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise: ‘I will not allow schools to impose COVID vaccine mandates,’” a White House fact sheet read. Even some GOP officials acknowledged that the order addresses an issue that is effectively moot: Almost all colleges and universities stopped requiring covid-19 vaccination after the public health emergency ended in May 2023, according to the American College Health Association."
Dan Diamond and Lena H. Sun report for the Washington Post February 16, 2025.
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