R&I – TxPAT ***
Sickening Decisions
A new congressional report shows how Donald Trump sabotaged the country’s early response to COVID.
BY WILLIAM SALETAN
DEC 20, 20217:14 PM
Republicans are attacking the White House with a new talking point: More Americans have died of COVID-19 under Joe Biden’s presidency, they point out, than under Donald Trump’s. Mathematically, that’s true. When Trump left office, the U.S. death toll was around 400,000 people; now it’s above 800,000. The comparison is misleading for many reasons, however. One is that Biden has been dealt two new variants, Delta and Omicron, that spread more aggressively than the original Wuhan virus did. Furthermore, while Biden has begged Americans to get vaccinated, Republican politicians have constantly undermined him by banning or blocking vaccine mandates.
But there’s another crucial difference between the two administrations, and it’s outlined in a new report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Trump’s administration, unlike Biden’s, deliberately sabotaged the nation’s response to the pandemic.
The report, issued on Friday, documents multiple channels of interference by Trump and his underlings. To begin with, the White House shut down public briefings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Feb. 25, 2020, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC official in charge of respiratory diseases, warned Americans that a pandemic was coming and that they should prepare for school and workplace closures. Trump responded by threatening to fire her. For months thereafter, the White House refused to authorize CDC briefings. In transcribed interviews, CDC officials told the subcommittee that in April 2020, the White House rejected the agency’s request to hold a briefing to present the scientific case for wearing masks. Instead, Trump delivered his own COVID briefing, at which he said of masks: “You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it.” That statement and others, according to CDC officials who spoke to the subcommittee, gravely undermined the agency’s efforts to control the pandemic.
Second, the White House altered CDC guidance to religious congregations, deleting recommendations to wear masks and take other precautions. In a May 2020 email obtained by the committee, Jay Butler, a CDC official, reported that the White House had stripped out crucial elements of the guidance. “All references to face coverings are missing in the WH version,” Butler wrote. In addition, he noted, “References to considering virtual events are absent from the WH version.”…
Orange of Specious
Article URL : https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/the-sad-new-details-of-how-trump-sabotaged-the-countrys-response-to-covid.html