The Trump administration influenced the CDC’s guidance to suppress Covid’s tests, says House’s panel

Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump listens to the coronavirus task force daily briefing at the White House on April 22, 2020 in Washington, DC.

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The Trump administration sought to suppress the Covid-19 test in the United States last year, softening the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on who needed to be tested, a House panel said on Monday.

In August, the CDC revised its Covid-19 test guideline to say that people who do not have symptoms “do not necessarily need a test”, even if they have been exposed to an infected person. The measure was widely criticized by public health experts and politicians, who said that testing asymptomatic people is an important part of identifying and eliminating chains of dissemination.

Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brett Giroir, who led the Trump administration’s testing efforts, at the time denied claims that the White House was pressuring health officials to change direction.

But the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Monday released e-mails recently obtained from a political appointee within the Department of Health and Human Services that indicate that he pushed for a new direction.

In the emails, former HHS scientific advisor Paul Alexander defended the change in testing policy and downplayed the importance of testing people without symptoms, saying “it is not the purpose of the test”. Alexander was brought to HHS by Michael Caputo, a former Trump ally who led the department’s communications last year before abruptly departing after accusing CDC scientists of sedition.

“Testing asymptomatic people for asymptomatic cases is not the goal of the test, because in the end, all it can do is end up quarantining asymptomatic and low-risk people and preventing the workforce from working,” wrote Alexander day after the change in the CDC test guidance was reported in an email to other HHS employees.

“In this light, it would not be reasonable, based on the prevailing data, to have generalized tests from schools and colleges / universities. This will not allow them to reopen optimally, ”he added, defending the policy change.

In September, the CDC silently reversed the guidance, saying that anyone, even those without symptoms, who have been in close contact with an infected person needs a Covid-19 test.

Congressman James Clyburn, DS.C., chairman of the committee that is investigating allegations of political influence in the country’s top health agencies under the Trump administration, said in letters seen by CNBC to White House chief of staff Ron Klain, and HHS acting secretary Norris Cochran said the emails are recent evidence of political interference at the CDC under Trump.

The email, Clyburn said in the letters, “shows that political appointees were involved in the decision to change the orientation of the CDC, and that the Trump administration changed the orientation for the explicit purpose of reducing testing and allowing the virus to spread while quickly reopens the economy. “

Clyburn added that the committee requested more documents from the CDC and other agencies “to understand the full scope and impact of Trump’s White House efforts to suppress coronavirus testing.”

Alexander is at the center of the ongoing investigation into whether the administration of President Donald Trump or his appointees allowed the policy to shape the nation’s response to the pandemic. In December, Clyburn released a collection of emails from Alexander and Caputo that showed “a pernicious pattern of political interference by government officials,” according to Clyburn.

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