🚨BREAKING: @HHSGov spokesman Michael Caputo and Dr. Paul Alexander tried to “browbeat” @CDCgov officials at the peak of the #pandemic—challenging the #science behind their public statements + attempting to silence CDC staff—to politically spin the data.
nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/…
When Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC principal deputy director, advised Americans to #WearAMask and warned, “We have way too much virus across the country,” Alexander—a part-time assistant professor of health research methods—wrote: “Her aim is to embarrass the president.”🙄
#COVID19
Alexander emailed Caputo, “She is duplicitous,” asking him to “remind” Schuchat that thousands of Americans died “under her work” during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu outbreak.
12,500 Americans died of swine flu in 1 year vs. >200,000 of #COVID19 in 6 months💥
usatoday.com/story/news/fac…
Of Schuchat’s assessment of #COVID19’s dangers, Alexander wrongly fumed, “The risk of death in children 0-19 years of age is basically 0…PERIOD…she has lied.”
Children have gotten critically ill and DIED from #coronavirus, not to mention potential long-term adverse effects.
Caputo tried to muzzle CDC scientists by moving to punish CDC’s communications team for granting interviews to @NPR and attempting to help a @CNN reporter reach him about a PR campaign. “Current & former CDC officials called it a 5-month campaign of BULLYING and intimidation.”🤬
Caputo sent Alexander’s critique of Schuchat to @CDCDirector Redfield. Officials got concerned when Catherine Granito—member of the health department’s WH liaison office—questioned CDC on Schuchat’s bio, leaving an impression that some may‘ve been searching for ways to fire her.
Caputo wrote to CDC communications officials on July 15 to demand they turn over the name of the press officer who approved a series of interviews between NPR and a CDC epidemiologist, after HHS had moved to take ownership of CDC #pandemic data collection.
#coverup #COVID19
Caputo: “I need to know who did it,” A day later, he wrote back, “I have not received a response to my email for 20 hours. This is unacceptable. I need this information to properly manage department communications. If you disobey my directions, you will be held accountable.”😳
On Wednesday, Caputo went on leave from HHS, days after attacking CDC scientists in a bizarre Facebook video—he falsely claimed CDC scientists “haven’t gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops” to plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next. »🙄
Alexander is also leaving HHS.😃
In the months leading up to their exits, the 2 had worked to revise & delay CDC’s internationally admired health bulletins—Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports—in an effort to spin Trump’s #pandemic response in a more positive light.🤬
#COVID19
One CDC communications official became so worried about Caputo’s threat that she wrote to other senior staff asking how to reply, saying she was “uncomfortable turning over our employee’s name to Caputo, given the hostility of the message.”😳
Awful attempted #coverup by Trump.
Schuchat warned of a dangerous surge in #COVID19 cases, weeks before our peak of ~70,000 new cases a day. Fauci testified to the Senate that we could hit 100,000 new cases a day.
That portrait of the #pandemic was at odds with the one the WH had strained to spin.🙄
The day Schuchat lamented there was “way too much virus across the country,” @PressSec Kayleigh McEnany said, “we’re aware that there are embers that need to be put out.”
Trump said that week he believed the virus was “at some point” going to “sort of just disappear, I hope.”🤬
In communications w/Schuchat, Alexander pushed herd immunity: “Importantly, having the virus spread among the young & healthy is 1 of the methods to drive herd immunity. This was not the intended strategy but all must be on deck now & it is contributing positively at some level.”
We are in the midst of an historic #pandemic, and scientists *must* be allowed to follow the #science and give us the #facts to SAVE LIVES.
It appears that CDC scientists have had enough of Trump’s bullying, that they never should have faced.
#COVID19
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