Does the CDC Have a Plan to Put High-Risk Individuals in Camps?

Right-wing provocateur and frequent source of misinformation Candace Owens claimed in a recent viral tweet that the CDC “actually put together a document to discuss putting high risk people into camps to ‘shield’ low risk people from them.”

Owens linked to a page on the CDC’s website titled “Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings.” As the title suggests, the document discusses how to organize humanitarian settings—such as refugee camps—to limit the spread of COVID-19 infections. It does not describe creating camps for high-risk individuals. The first sentence of the document reads: “This document presents considerations from the perspective of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for implementing the shielding approach in humanitarian settings as outlined in guidance documents focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings.”

The document was published in July 2020, during the Trump administration, and outlines potential challenges to implementing the “shielding approach,” a plan in which individuals at high risk of contracting the virus are separated from those at low-risk of contracting the virus. Again, this document discusses shielding within camps, not, as Owens claims, creating camps for high-risk populations.