The June 28 email to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was ominous: A senior adviser to a top Health and Human Services Department official accused the CDC of “undermining the President” by putting out a report about the potential risks of the coronavirus to pregnant women. The adviser, Paul Alexander, criticized the agency’s methods and said its warning to pregnant women “reads in a way to frighten women . . . as if the President and his administration can’t fix this and it is getting worse.” As the country enters a frightening phase of the pandemic with new daily cases surpassing 57,000 on Thursday, the CDC, the nation’s top public health agency, is coming under intense pressure from President Trump and his allies, who are downplaying the dangers in a bid to revive the economy ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. In a White House guided by the president’s instincts, rather than by evidence-based policy, the CDC finds itself forced constantly to backtrack or sidelined from pivotal decisions. The latest clash between the White House and its top public health advisers erupted Wednesday, when the president slammed the agency’s recommendation that schools planning to reopen should keep students’ desks six feet apart, among other steps to reduce infection risks. In a tweet, Trump — who has demanded schools at all levels hold in-person classes this fall — called the advice “very tough & expensive.” “While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!” Trump tweeted Wednesday. The CDC was already planning to issue new guidelines in the coming days. But Vice President Pence on Wednesday explicitly tied the effort to Trump’s ire. “The president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough,” Pence told reporters. “And that’s the reason next week the CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools.” Analysts say the deepening divide is undermining the authority of one of the world’s premier public health agencies, which previously led fights against malaria, smallpox and HIV/AIDS. Amid the worst public health crisis in a century, the CDC has in recent months altered or rescinded recommendations on topics including wearing masks and safely reopening restaurants and houses of worship as a result of conflicts with top administration officials. “At a time when our country needs an orchestrated, all-hands-on-deck response, there is simply no hand on the tiller,” said Beth Cameron, former senior director for global health security and biodefense on the White House National Security Council. In the absence of strong federal leadership, state and local officials have been left to figure things out for themselves, leading to conflicting messaging and chaotic responses. Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization further undermined efforts to influence global strategies against the coronavirus, including how vaccines will be distributed. The CDC, meanwhile, is increasingly isolated — a function both of its growing differences with the White House and of its own significant missteps earlier in the outbreak. Those stumbles include the botched rollout of test kits likely contaminated at a CDC lab in late January, which led to critical delays in states’ ability to know where the virus was circulating. And the CDC’s initial decision to test only a narrow set of people gave the virus a head start spreading undetected across the country. During a May lunch with Senate Republicans, Trump told the group the CDC “blew it” on the coronavirus test and that he’d installed a team of “geniuses” led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner to handle much of the response, according to two people familiar with the lunch who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Knowledge is an enormous burden. Ignorance is indeed bliss. The CDC figures are a understated joke. Here are real numbers from John Hopkins University of the real positiviety rate read them and wheep:
| Puerto Rico | 100.00% |
| Arizona | 27.56% |
| Florida | 19.27% |
| Mississippi | 18.71% |
| South Carolina | 16.44% |
| Texas | 15.05% |
| Idaho | 14.64% |
| Georgia | 14.28% |
| Alabama | 14.03% |
| Nevada | 12.41% |
| Arkansas | 12.23% |
| Utah | 11.08% |
| Kansas | 10.27% |
| Louisiana | 9.37% |
| Iowa | 8.72% |
| Oklahoma | 8.53% |
| Tennessee | 8.20% |
| California | 7.71% |
| South Dakota | 7.62% |
| North Carolina | 7.33% |
| Indiana | 7.29% |
| Wisconsin | 7.02% |
| Nebraska | 6.94% |
| Missouri | 6.36% |
| Kentucky | 6.19% |
| Oregon | 6.05% |
| Colorado | 5.90% |
| Washington | 5.88% |
| Ohio | 5.78% |
| Virginia | 5.65% |
| Pennsylvania | 5.43% |
| Maryland | 5.15% |
| Delaware | 5.07% |
- Data Source:Testing data from The COVID Tracking Project