Photo: ANGELA WEISS / AFP / Getty Images
The main political officials of the White House during the government of Donald Trump attempted to block public health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and remove evidence of their political interference in those scientists’ reports on the coronavirus pandemic , according to documents recently released by Congressional researchers.
latest documents of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis of the House of Representatives investigating the response of the previous administration to the coronavirus pandemic that has caused more of 765,000 deaths in the United States shed additional light on the efforts of some of the former political appointees President Trump to blunt or even block the messages of the country’s health system officials, because they did not align with Trump’s optimistic projections.
During a press conference held on 25 February 2020, Former CDC Senior Official, Nancy Messonnier, warned of dangers ahead of COVID – 19 and told reporters that the spread of the coronavirus was essentially inevitable.
“It’s not so much about whether this will happen again, but rather when exactly,” he said.
His statement angered Trump, and subsequently the administration stopped granting CDC officials permission to report to the public. The agency did not hold briefings from early March to June, during some of the first and most confusing moments of the pandemic.
In an interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Pandemic, Messonnier said his intention was to tell the truth.
“My intention was not and has not been never scare the public … our intention was certainly to draw the public’s attention to the likelihood that COVID was in the United States and that it would spread and that we thought there was a high risk that it would be harmful, ”Messonnier said.
To former CDC Senior Deputy Director, Anne Schuchat, was asked to appear at another press conference later that afternoon with the Department of Health and Human Services.
“ The impression I got was that the reaction to the morning briefing was quite volatile and having another one briefing, you know, later, I think I got the impression that having another briefing could be … you know, there’s nothing new to report, but get additional voices to speak out about that situation, ”Schuchat told the committee in his testimonial.
After that day, the White House took over the response to the coronavirus pandemic, including all public communication , and prohibited the CDC from making its own reports.
“I remember that the agency asked to do informational meetings, but I don’t remember when or which ones. I know there was a time when they stopped asking because they kept saying no, ”said Schuchat.
The Coronavirus Task Force of the White House began holding its own briefings that spring. Schuchat said that at a certain point he stopped looking at them because he felt they were useless and transmitted mixed messages.
At the same time, Other Trump officials tried to prevent the CDC from releasing what the White House deemed negative information about the pandemic .
Trump administration officials specifically tried to interfere with the CDC’s weekly morbidity and mortality reports (MMWRs) to better align them with the More optimistic messages from the White House on the status of the pandemic.
Christine Casey , the editor of the MMWR reports, confirmed to the committee that she received instructions to delete an email in which the former HHS politician appointee, Paul Alexander, demanded that the CDC stop publishing truthful scientific reports that he believed harmed Trump .
Casey said he understood the instruction came from the former CDC director, Robert Redfield.
In another example, Scott Atlas, a former special adviser to Trump, was involved in making changes to the CDC guidance that drastically reduced who should get tested for COVID – 19 . Atlas is a radiologist with no prior experience in infectious diseases, and was added to the task force in the summer of 2020.
The CDC guidance was abruptly changed on 24 August 2020, to state that most asymptomatic people should not get tested for Covid – 19, even if they were exposed to someone with the coronavirus. The CDC made the move by updating its website and did not make any public announcements or explain the reasoning behind the main review.
The guidelines were published despite objections from Deborah Birx , former Trump administration coronavirus response coordinator.
Less than a month later, the CDC released a revised testing guide to make it clear that anyone who comes into close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus should be tested.
The revised guide was written by Birx , Redfield and Henry Walke , a veteran CDC official. Birx said it was published with “objections from senior White House staff.”
With information from The Hill and CNN
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