Thursday, April 28, 2022

EXCLUSIVE: Hundreds of CDC Employees Haven’t Received a COVID-19 Vaccine

 

EXCLUSIVE: Hundreds of CDC Employees Haven’t Received a COVID-19 Vaccine

By Zachary Stieber
 
April 28, 2022 Updated: April 28, 2022

Nearly 400 employees at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to data obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times.

Three hundred and 82 workers at the CDC are unvaccinated, Roger Andoh, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer at the agency, told The Epoch Times.

Another nine employees have just had one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, meaning they do not qualify as fully vaccinated per the CDC’s guidelines.

Together, the number is 3.2 percent of the CDC’s workforce.

Andoh initially pointed to a press release from the government that contained data current as of December 2021 and declined to fully answer The Epoch Times’ FOIA request, which asked for more detailed figures current as of March 15, 2022.

“Please note that this is the most recent and most complete data available and some data elements that you requested are not available,” Andoh said initially.

Asked to clarify, another CDC officer repeated Andoh’s statement.

After The Epoch Times filed an appeal to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, the office changed its stance without explaining why.

“After an additional search, we are providing you with the following information,” Andoh said in the new response.

“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,” Jonathan Nelson, a FOIA analyst with HHS, told The Epoch Times in an email. “Based on that, my (personal) belief is that this was just an accidental omission on their part,” Nelson said.

Besides revealing 391 employees are not fully vaccinated, the CDC said that 12,399 are fully vaccinated. That means they received two doses of the Moderna of Pfizer vaccines or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab.

Additionally, 5,810 employees have shared that they have received a booster dose, though the agency stressed that employees do not have to say whether they’ve had a booster.

The CDC also disclosed that the agency has granted zero requests for an exemption from President Joe Biden’s federal worker vaccine mandate, which is poised to take effect on May 31 after a monthslong suspension owing to a court ruling.

The CDC’s media office did not reply when asked what would happen to unvaccinated workers who don’t have an exemption, and why no exemptions have been given.

The data are current as of April 12.

Three other health agencies inside the HHS deeply involved in promoting COVID-19 vaccination that also refused to provide data beyond December 2021 have still not provided the figures requested. They are the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the National Institutes of Health.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-hundreds-of-cdc-employees-havent-had-a-covid-19-vaccine_4429636.html?

Zachary Stieber 
Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news. He is based in Maryland.

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