[Goose]

Many Americans associate the US CDC with big government and are inclined to the opposite. 

Is the above actually true? It's so hard with all the misinformation. Before all of this, I thought we looked up to the CDC as the gold standard. The CDC was the cavalry that rode into Africa to show them how to fight Ebola, and so on and so forth ... OK nothing is ever completely black or white, so sure, there must have been some who distrusted the CDC, but "many"?

I don't want to get into a "fact" war, or the 2020 version, a links war, lobbing links back and forth. So I'm just asking ... was this suspicion of the CDC true before this pandemic?

Short answer, yes, there was more than suspicion that the CDC would be unable to cope with a large outbreak in the USA. The CDC itself published documents highlighting some of the issues. Unfortunately, nothing was done to address the shortcomings. BC has posted a NYT article about the current problems.

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthread.php?tid=19845

On the basic topic of what the "average citizen" thinks about the CDC, I believe the following is true. Before COVID-19, most people had no idea the CDC existed. When they found out it did, it was during the testing roll-out that was a mess. That didn't leave a good impression of the CDC. Those few who actually knew the CDC existed mostly believed it was a very good organization who would do their job. IMHO that belief unfortunately was based on "ancient" history and good PR from the government. The CDC itself was aware of many of the weaknesses. Unfortunately, one of those weaknesses was a lack of urgency about anything.

[Goose]

Many Americans associate the US CDC with big government and are inclined to the opposite. 

Is the above actually true? It's so hard with all the misinformation. Before all of this, I thought we looked up to the CDC as the gold standard. The CDC was the cavalry that rode into Africa to show them how to fight Ebola, and so on and so forth ... OK nothing is ever completely black or white, so sure, there must have been some who distrusted the CDC, but "many"?

I don't want to get into a "fact" war, or the 2020 version, a links war, lobbing links back and forth. So I'm just asking ... was this suspicion of the CDC true before this pandemic?

Short answer, yes, there was more than suspicion that the CDC would be unable to cope with a large outbreak in the USA. The CDC itself published documents highlighting some of the issues. Unfortunately, nothing was done to address the shortcomings. BC has posted a NYT article about the current problems.

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthread.php?tid=19845

On the basic topic of what the "average citizen" thinks about the CDC, I believe the following is true. Before COVID-19, most people had no idea the CDC existed. When they found out it did, it was during the testing roll-out that was a mess. That didn't leave a good impression of the CDC. Those few who actually knew the CDC existed mostly believed it was a very good organization who would do their job. IMHO that belief unfortunately was based on "ancient" history and good PR from the government. The CDC itself was aware of many of the weaknesses. Unfortunately, one of those weaknesses was a lack of urgency about anything.