- The White House denied CDC permission to inform the public about the coronavirus crisis, an agency source told Yahoo News.
- The CDC found itself unable to hold public meetings for three months, beginning shortly after a senior official warned in late February that the virus could affect the United States.
- At the time, this was in stark contrast to the predictions of President Donald Trump, who argued that the coronavirus did not seriously threaten the United States.
- Between March 9 and June 12 there were no CDC briefings. In that period, Trump increasingly led communications about the virus, spreading false claims and promoting unproven cures.
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The White House denied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) permission to inform the public about the coronavirus crisis, an agency source told Yahoo News.
As the coronavirus spread across the U.S., it was the White House coronavirus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence, and increasingly led by President Donald Trump, who took the lead in reporting to the public about the crisis.
CDC had reported frequently about the pandemic earlier this year. But then he abruptly fell silent, with no public meetings between March 9 and June 12.
A CDC spokesman, speaking anonymously to Yahoo, confirmed that the agency “slowly but surely moved to the background” before the coronavirus task force.
“We continue to ask for approval” from the White House to hold briefings, the CDC spokesman told Yahoo News. “They didn’t give us approval. Finally, we just stopped asking.”
In a briefing on February 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the U.S. National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a severe warning about the likely impact of the disease.
“It is not so much about whether this will happen more, but rather when exactly it will happen,” he said.
The message was in stark contrast to Trump’s attempts to minimize the possible impact of the disease.
However, the CDC spokesperson insisted that behind the scenes, the agency had played a key role in the United States’ response to the crisis.
“We really have had a seat at the table leading the public health response to this,” the spokesperson said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
A member of the task force told Yahoo that the CDC was too concerned with his own stature and that an inter-agency response to the crisis was required. “The CDC feels they should be in charge of this,” said the official.
The White House coronavirus task force briefings were originally chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, with Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, playing a leading role.
President Donald Trump began to play an increasingly central role in the briefings, which were later canceled after he promoted the injection of disinfectant as a coronavirus treatment, causing shock and criticism.
The CDC and its director, Robert Redfield, have been criticized for missteps in the early days of the crisis, including the failed deployment of a system of bureaucratic testing and delays.
Amid a surge in new cases, the Trump administration is considering making the scapegoat agency the wavering United States response to the crisis, administration sources told Politician in June.
