So, the triple whopper of 1) the Peter Navarro op-ed, 2) the CDC being stripped of it's role as the COVID data collector, and 3) director Redfield saying spikes in the south are due to Northerners traveling South (in the summer!) kept me up until 3 a.m. Let's look at this 1/
The Navarro op-ed, which I will not repost so no more traffic to it, should see the fate of the Mike Pence op-ed and be denounced. It isn't opinion but lies and even peddles hydroxychloroquine again. And @USATODAY just puts a disclaimer at the end! 2/
The problem with this is that for those who don't know all the details, it sows doubt. Navarro can not be all wrong, right? (He is. ALL. WRONG.) It's clever. Effective. These narratives stick. Look at this Newsmax clip & what @ashishkjha gets asked. 3/
So we are in the middle of a narrative control campaign by the White House. We all know why: things aren't looking so good with the pandemic. Keeps getting worse not better. Kind of like Fauci said. People dying is inconvenient. Response: Let's hide the data & shift the blame! 4/
This is where Redfield comes in, spinning the yarn that early reopening didn't cause the spikes in the South (as Fauci said) but traveling Northerners. Because nothing's better than pitching us against each other in a pandemic. Rebuttal by @ashishkjha here
The playbook of narrative control includes these key elements: Lies & misinfo to confuse people & sow doubt (the whole anti-Fauci campaign.) Absurd theories that shift blame & avoid accountability (eg Redfield.) And control of inconvenient facts. Voila: The CDC data decision 6/
The issue with the decision to take data reporting away from CDC and move it into HHS is not that CDC was perfect. We've long been asking for better data reporting. The issue is that data is now directly reported into a new third party tool from the company TeleTracking. 7/
Here comes the kicker. You know who is the CEO and chairman of TeleTracking? Michael G Zamagias. You know what his main business is? Wait for it. You guessed it! REAL ESTATE. zamagias.com/about/ 8/
According to the @nytimes this was a non-competitive, million $ contract. Hospitals are now required to report data directly to HHS via TeleTracking system. No one at CDC can vet or raise alarm if what comes in doesn't match what gets reported to public 9/ nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/…
In short: As Trump's misinformation machinery 'floods the zone with shit' (Steve Bannon) admin officials shift the blame & take control of the data that tells the truth. All of this, of course, in the absence of a national COVID strategy. We have one here: globalepidemics.org/wp-content/upl…
Meanwhile, the unbreakable Tony #Fauci keeps doing the Lord's work of saying it as it is. /END theguardian.com/world/2020/jul…
