CDC failures during pandemic tarnished agency…

In the early days of Covid, staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sought to give Americans guidance about maintaining some semblance of normalcy during a once-in-a-century pandemic that had upended daily life.One recommendation? Play basketball with your friends — online.There was one big problem: The nation’s top public health professionals failed to consult their very colleagues who’d be responsible for communicating this advice to the public.“We have to have a seat at the table sooner, so we can raise our hand and say, ‘Hey guys, I’m sorry, but playing basketball virtually with your friends is probably not a great recommendation,’” a CDC staffer told NBC News before adding: “That’s pretty stupid.”Another staffer echoed the frustration. “There were a number of people inside the agency that were sometimes perplexed at whether what we were recommending was really practical.”Communication failures like that, along with much more consequential errors, would continue throughout the pandemic, deeply tarnishing the agency — long considered the gold standard of public health institutions. The blunders have left career scientists and other longtime employees worried that the wounds can’t be healed. All culminated in what would become …