Trump admits he played Coronavirus down, far more dangerous than the flu

[shunyadragon]

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809

Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19


The politically appointed HHS spokesperson and his team demanded and received the right to review CDC’s scientific reports to health professionals.

Former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo arrives at the Hart Senate Office building to be interviewed by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, on May 1, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
Former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

By DAN DIAMOND

09/11/2020 10:25 PM EDT

Updated: 09/12/2020 09:42 AM EDT

The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.

In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.

CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.

But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.

Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.

© Copyright Original Source

[Electric Skeptic]

It's so reassuring that you guys care so much about my daughter. Thanks!

That's just disingenuous. Can you address the actual post?

[Cow Poke]

That's just disingenuous. Can you address the actual post?

She's handling it.

[Mountain Man]

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809

Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19

© Copyright Original Source

I love the bias. The headline could just as easily read "Trump officials verify accuracy of CDC reported on COVID19".

[Electric Skeptic]

I love the bias. The headline could just as easily read "Trump officials verify accuracy of CDC reported on COVID19".

...except that that headline would not have been accurate. The 'bias' you imagine is actually a desire for accuracy.

[shunyadragon]

I love the bias. The headline could just as easily read "Trump officials verify accuracy of CDC reported on COVID19".

Wishful thinking.

[LiconaFan97]

April 13

TRUMP: This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance.
WOODWARD: Yes, yes, exactly.
TRUMP: So this rips you apart.
WOODWARD: This is a scourge. And--
TRUMP: It is the plague.

A few weeks later Trump moved to disband the Coronavirus task force.

[firstfloor]

Isn’t it comforting to have Michael Caputo on the case?

[shunyadragon]

Trump in total mental confusion over vaccines, pandemic implications, and masks. Rejects his science advisors and medical authorities.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/16/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-masks-health-experts/index.html

Trump disputes CDC head's vaccine timeline and mask claims
By Maegan Vazquez, CNN



(CNN)President Donald Trump again contradicted his own health officials' coronavirus statements -- this time on the importance of mask wearing and the timing for a vaccine.

And he demeaned Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying the doctor was "confused" in his congressional testimony.

Redfield said Wednesday that masks may be a more effective protection against coronavirus than any potential vaccine that the President can't stop hyping. And he laid out a timeline for when the general US public could expect to start seeing results from widespread coronavirus vaccination the second or third quarter of 2021. Those statements both seemed to contradict what Trump has been saying.
"I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against Covid than when I take a Covid vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%. And if I don't get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me. This face mask will," Redfield told lawmakers during public testimony, adding that the American public has not yet embraced the use of masks to a level that could effectively control the outbreak.

Responding to Redfield's congressional testimony, Trump took his pushback against the doctor -- who he appointed to lead the CDC -- a step further, contradicting the agency head on two accounts: the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine and the effectiveness of masks compared with inoculation.

Redfield told the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday: "If you're asking me when is it going to be generally available to the American public, so we can begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life, I think we're probably looking at third, late second quarter, third quarter 2021."

The President told reporters Redfield was "confused" when he said that.

"I think he made a mistake when he said that. It's just incorrect information," Trump said.

The President also said Redfield's comments to Congress about masks possibly being more effective than a vaccine were incorrect and that Redfield may have misunderstood the question.

"Maybe he misunderstood it," Trump said, later adding, "As far as the masks are concerned, I hope that the vaccine is going to be a lot more beneficial than the masks."

Redfield said in a statement regarding his mask testimony that he believes in the "importance of vaccines and the importance in particular of a Covid-19 vaccine."

"A Covid-19 vaccine is the thing that will get Americans back to normal everyday life. The best defense we currently have against this virus are the important mitigation efforts of wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing and being careful about crowds," he said, not addressing Trump's claim that he had been confused.

A CDC spokesman issued a statement responding to Trump's vaccine comment by seemingly backing up the President's claim.

"In today's hearing, Dr. Redfield was answering a question he thought was in regard to the time period in which all Americans would have completed their Covid vaccination, and his estimate was by the second or third quarter of 2021. He was not referring to the time period when Covid-19 vaccine doses would be made available to all Americans," the spokesman said.
This is not the first time Trump has forced Redfield to revisit answers he's given regarding the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Trump claimed Redfield had been inaccurately quoted in The Washington Post, before the doctor confirmed he had been accurately quoted.

The back-and-forth comes the day after Trump's White House held a peace agreement ceremony with dignitaries from three foreign countries that largely ignored social distancing and mask guidelines -- and the President awkwardly and baselessly named "waiters" as part of a group of people who don't like wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus.

© Copyright Original Source