Thread by @weareoversight

New: Documents from Washington State during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic reveal confusion and poor coordination on the part of federal agencies, leaving local public health officials scrambling to address the crisis.
americanoversight.org/more-documents…

One point of confusion was President Donald Trump’s Jan. 31 travel ban that denied entry to any non-American citizens coming from mainland China. Emails show some health workers wanted “more clarity around the new guidelines.”
beta.documentcloud.org/documents/2040…

By the end of February, federal and state officials faced coordination issues. State officials struggled to get info about how the CDC planned to transport non-residents who had tested positive back to their home states, and had to repeatedly send information to CDC officials.

Records we previously obtained also showed communication problems between officials at CDC and health officials in Washington state in these early weeks.
americanoversight.org/in-the-documen…

The emails also show that the CDC knew the extent of the virus’ spread was likely beyond current testing counts.

On Feb. 29, a scientist emailed the CDC’s deputy incident manager, saying that he had new data on Covid’s spread that “firmly suggest transmission in Washington.”

On March 4, the scientist emailed again saying he had sequenced new mutations of the virus and found one that had been circulating since mid-January. The CDC official said the data was “more of academic interest” and wouldn’t impact the government’s coronavirus response.

Despite this knowledge of the virus’ spread, as of March 5, the CDC was still planning for the Epidemic Intelligence Service Conference to happen in person at a hotel in early May.

For more on our investigation of the Trump administration’s failure to heed early warnings and its poor coordination with states, visit our Covid-19 Oversight Hub.
americanoversight.org/areas_of_inves…