The White House’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is once again pointed out, during the tenure of Donald Trump. A parliamentary report, released on Monday, says members of the former president’s team have prevented health officials from providing any information on Covid-19, to go in the direction of Donald Trump’s optimistic view.
Senior officials from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal health agency in the United States, told investigators that members of the Trump administration intimidated staff and attempted to rewrite their reports to align with the statements of the United States. president, who downplayed the health crisis. Republicans rejected the report’s findings, calling it biased, and vowed to conduct their own investigation if they regained a majority in any House of Congress in the November election.
An “unprecedented” campaign of political interference
Investigators interviewed a dozen former and current CDC officials, as well as senior government officials, for this 91-page report released by a Congressional committee examining the Covid-19 crisis. In it, the parliamentary panel describes how Department of Health officials, appointed by Donald Trump, tried to take control of the CDC science weekly, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportmodifying or censoring articles deemed harmful to the Republican president.
These officials tried to “alter the content, contradict or delay publication” of 18 of these weekly reports, as well as a health alert, and this was successful on five occasions, according to the parliamentary report. The commission’s investigation “showed that the previous administration waged an unprecedented campaign of political interference in the federal government’s response to the pandemic, which undermined public health in favor of the former president’s political goals,” the president said. of the commission, Democrat-elect Jim Clyburn.
Previous reports have already highlighted the Trump administration’s attempts to censor senior health officials or pressure the U.S. Medicines Agency to issue emergency clearance for hydroxychloroquine. This antimalarial drug was touted by Donald Trump as a cure for Covid-19, despite evidence to the contrary.
