A number of employees at the CDC have not yet received a COVID vaccine despite the agency's push for it.
More than 300 employees at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have not yet received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, new data found by Roger Andoh, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer has confirmed. There are currently 382 workers at the CDC who remain unvaccinated.
According to The Epoch Times, data reported by Andoh to the media outl;et showed that more than 300 employees are not vaccinated against COVID and another nine have just had one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna two-dose vaccine. This means they do not qualify as fully vaccinated as per CDC rules. This results in a total of 3.2% of CDC's entire workforce.
At first, Andoh cited a statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in which its Secretary Xavier Becerra said that the agency's largest divisions "have vaccination rates that exceed the Department's vaccination rate of more than 97%" and that "nearly every member of our workforce has answered the President's call, and I couldn't be prouder."
But the agency refused to answer a FOIA request from ET that asked for more detailed figures as of March 15. Andoh said initially, "Please note that this is the most recent and most complete data available and some data elements that you requested are not available."
When ET pressed for more answers, another CDC officer reiterated Andoh's response. Then, after an appeal was filed to the HHS, CDC's parent agency, the agency replied through Andoh, who said, "After an additional search, we are providing you with the following information."
Then, FOIA analyst with the HHS Jonathan Nelson explained in an email, "The response I got to your appeal from CDC gave me the impression they didn't mean to withhold any information in the first place. Based on that, my (personal) belief is that this was just an accidental omission on their part."
The CDC confirmed that 391 employees were not fully vaccinated against COVID but that 12,399 were fully vaccinated. All of these people had received two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Moreover, 5,810 CDC employees were recorded to have received a booster dose, despite the agency saying that employees do not have to say if they had a booster or not.
The CDC also confirmed that there were no requests for exemptions to President Joe Biden's federal worker vaccine mandate, which is set to take effect on May 31 after being suspended for months following a court ruling. Under the HHS, three other health agencies are deeply involved in promoting COVID vaccination, namely the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the National Institutes of Health.
Earlier this month, a study published in JAMA Network Open revealed that the FDA's full approval of the COVID vaccines did not help encourage unvaccinated Americans to get the shots, USA Today reported. Researchers from the University of Utah analyzed vaccination data from the CDC beginning July 25, a month before FDA's full approval to September 9, a day before President Joe Biden announced his COVID vaccine mandate. Research revealed that the FDA's full approval was linked to an overall 36% increase in vaccinations, but most were second doses. As for the first dose, it had a 16% lower rate than predicted.
