Updated Mar. 18, 2021
This guidance from the CDC was updated on March 18, 2021, originally published on July 26, 2020 as “Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent Covid-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings“.
It appeared to be focused on settings such as refugee camps in low-resource settings. The methodology had never been documented previously and raised eyebrows among humanitarian providers that partner with the US providing support actions in these settings.
The stated purpose of the document was portrayed as an effort to identify challenges of the ‘shielding approach’ in the absence of empirical data but was based on ‘current evidence known about the transmission and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)’.