CDC does not collect data from reinfected people transmitting Covid-19

Twitter posts claiming that the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has no records of people not vaccinated against Covid-19 who transmitted the disease to others after reinfection are misleading. The document used in the tweets verified by Projeto Comprova, in which the CDC responds to a consultation on the matter made by a lawyer, is authentic. However, the agency claims that it does not have the records because these data are not collected, which does not mean that there are no cases of unvaccinated people who have transmitted the disease.

In at least four posts made on Twitter, a document from the CDC sent to a lawyer in New York is attached, after a request for information through the Foia (Freedom of Information Act), the US government’s access to information law. In the document, she consults with the CDC about the existence of “documents that reflect any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a Covid-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with Covid-19 once, recovered, and , later became infected again; and (3) transmitted Sars-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected.”

CDC’s response is that no records were found because the requested data is not collected due to privacy protections. The Twitter posts, in fact, claim the CDC said it had no records. However, the tweets in response do not make it clear that the question asked by the lawyer was about transmission by non-vaccinated after reinfection.

The interpretation of most of the people who interacted with the posts is that the fact that there are no records at the CDC means that there are no cases of this type.

This interpretation is evident in the answers: there are profiles that say that natural immunity is better than that of the vaccine, that this is a “secret kept under lock and key by the industry” and that this is proof that the “experiment” does not have given the desired result, referring to the vaccine.

When a profile questions the interpretation that the lack of records would mean the absence of cases, it is rebutted by the author of one of the tweets: “If there is no information, why is the statement made then? This is the point”.

The four authors of the verified tweets —@RafaelFontana, @DiretoDaAmerica, @Dr_Francisco_ and @profcabarros— were contacted, but only the last two responded, reaffirming that the absence of CDC data validates the thesis that reinfected people do not transmit Covid- 19.

This content was considered misleading by Comprova because it leads to a different interpretation of the author’s intention, with or without the intention to cause harm.

How do we check?

The report used Google to locate the lawyer whose name is mentioned in the document used in the tweets and, upon finding an email contact on the official website of the office where she works, questioned her about the veracity of the document used on the social network.

He then contacted the CDC to find out if the document was true and why there are no records for cases of people who have not been vaccinated and who have transmitted Covid-19.

Finally, the authors of the four tweets verified through direct messages sent on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were searched. Two of them responded to Comprova’s contact, the other two, until the publication of this text, have not returned.

Verification

Is the document authentic?

Yes. It was sent by the CDC on November 5, 2021 to attorney Elizabeth Brehm, who works at Siri & Glimstad in New York. The request for information had been made on September 2, 2021 through a form on the FOIA website. The two documents were made available in a text written by the office’s managing partner, Aaron Siri.

Query context

She is a lawyer at Siri & Glimstad, based in New York. According to information on the company’s website, she has a degree in Science and Law and, before joining the Siri & Glimstad team, she worked for nine years at another office, working mainly on antitrust actions and fraud in the healthcare system.

The office where she currently works maintains a page on its official website in which it claims to advocate for clients in the 50 US states “with compassion and experience” and “no representation costs” who have suffered vaccine injuries. They consider bursitis, tendonitis, rotator cuff injuries and adhesive capsulitis – a condition of stiffness in the shoulder joint also called frozen shoulder – as the most common. The office even mentions Guillain-Barré Syndrome as a “vaccine lesion”.

When asked about the veracity of the document, which was circulated in tweets in Brazil, and about the consultation she would have made to the CDC, Elizabeth Brehm replied by email only forwarding a link to a text published by the managing partner of the office where she works, Aaron Crab.

In the text, which encloses the employee’s question and the CDC’s response, Aaron says that one would think that the CDC should have at least one proof that an unvaccinated individual has passed Covid-19 to other people.

In the same post, he confirms that the CDC responded that it did not have the records requested by Elizabeth Brehm because the data was not being collected. Throughout the publication, Aaron says there are studies that prove that vaccinated people transmit Covid-19 and that it is “dystopian” that the CDC lifts restrictions on vaccinated people while “is actively destroying the rights of millions of naturally immune individuals in this country. , if they do not receive the vaccine”.

He also claims that the natural protection from the disease is superior to that of the vaccine. Comprova has already shown that the assertion that the CDC had admitted that natural protection was superior to that of the vaccine against Covid-19 was false and that health authorities in Brazil continue to recommend that everyone get vaccinated, since natural immunity is also false. tends to fall off with time.

Records

The CDC claimed to Comprova, by e-mail, that for “privacy reasons” it does not keep records of possible cases of transmission of Covid-19 by people who have already had the disease and were not immunized. The agency, however, stressed that there is no reason to believe that people who have already tested positive cannot be transmitters.

Subsequently, two studies on reinfection rates were sent (1 and 2) to the report by the North American agency, although not specifically on the risk of transmission by reinfected people.

The first, carried out with five residents of a specialized ward, showed that four of them had more severe cases of the disease after reinfection, with one death. The second gathered evidence that vaccination against Covid-19 in people already infected with the virus reduces the possibility of reinfection.

In January of this year, a study of healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom found that the immune response from a previous Covid-19 infection reduces the risk of contracting the disease again by 83%. The results pointed out by the researchers were published on the MedRxiv platform, still in the pre-print phase, and suggested that this protection lasted approximately five months.

Of the more than 6,000 study participants who had already had Covid-19, there was reinfection in less than 1%. However, the researchers found that in the few cases where this occurred, patients carried high levels of viral load in their nose and throat, even without experiencing symptoms. According to researcher Susan Hopkins, principal investigator of the study, these viral loads were being associated with a high risk of transmitting the virus to other people.

profiles

The article contacted the four profiles that posted the same content verified in this article. @RafaelFontana is a journalist, writer and, according to his social networks, works for a Brazilian communication company based in the United States. The second profile contacted was @profcabarros, journalist and lawyer.

Carlos responded to the article defending the content that was published in his tweet: “The point here is that you start from the premise that these cases exist, even if they don’t hair data” (sic). And, after sending the answer given by the CDC about not collecting such data, the journalist reaffirmed that his tweet was not distorting or inventing the published content.

The America Direct profile was also searched. On social media, the profile is described as a US news portal aimed at Brazilians around the world. The portal site was temporarily disabled and the Instagram profile is private. The contact was made through the Facebook page, but there was no return

The infectious disease physician Francisco Cardoso was also contacted. In June of this year, the professional was present at Covid’s CPI in order to defend “early treatment”, which does not have scientific proof against the disease, as indicated by the federal government.

In addition, Francisco is also investigated by the INSS (National Institute of Social Security) for receiving sick pay even though he is unable to practice his profession. Contact was made via email available on the doctor’s social networks.

Francisco Cardoso responded to Comprova and argued that its publication on Twitter was correct, since the statements made in the post are the same as those given to Comprova by the CDC, and that the documents presented in the tweet are true.

Why do we investigate?

In its fourth phase, Comprova investigates publications about the federal government, the elections and the pandemic that have gone viral on social networks. The post checked here was shared on Twitter by at least four profiles. Among likes, retweets and retweets with comments, there were more than 5,800 interactions.

In this case, the fact that the tweets do not reflect the complete content of the document led to a different interpretation than the author’s intention and reinforced the anti-vaccination discourse, which has been the basis for the dissemination of arguments against the implementation of the health passport and the advance of vaccination itself. It is a consensus in the scientific community that the curve of deaths and those infected by the virus drops with the advance of vaccine coverage, a reality that can be attested in Brazil.

October was the month with the fewest deaths from Covid-19 in the country since April 2020. The vaccination schedule was completed in more than 60% of the Brazilian population, despite the federal government’s refusal to offer to buy vaccines such as Pfizer.

Comprova has already checked other contents related to vaccines, such as the one that concluded that the secretary for the promotion of culture misinformed when stating that the immunizing agents against the coronavirus are experimental, or what confirmed that the relationship between them and cases of sudden illness among athletes is misleading. .

Misleading, for Comprova, is content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning changes; that it uses inaccurate data or that it induces an interpretation different from its author’s intention; that confuses, with or without the deliberate intention to cause harm.

Comprova performed this verification based on information available on the 24th November 2021.