Trump Has Been Trying To Manipulate Pandemic Statistics to Help His Election Campaign

First he tried, with some success, to get control of the reporting apparatus. Then he forced FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to lie about a treatment's efficacy-- Hahn has since apologized to the American people. And his newest stunt is to change the testing guidelines to make himself look better by making it look like there are fewer cases. Unfortunately, that will be deadly.

Washington Postreporters Amy Goldstein and Lena Sun wrote yesterday that "An abrupt shift this week in government testing guidelines for Americans exposed to the novel coronavirus was directed by the White House coronavirus task force, surprising and dismaying many public health experts. The new guidance, introduced this week without any announcement in a posting on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eliminated advice that everyone exposed to the virus through close contact with an infected individual get tested to find out whether they are positive, regardless of whether they have symptoms. Several leading infectious-disease experts say they feared the change will increase public confusion and further spread of the disease. The CDC estimates that 40 percent of those infected with the coronavirus have no symptoms but may spread it to other people."

In its new form, the testing guidance says that, for people who have been within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, “you do not necessarily need a test.” The previous federal guidelines had urged tests for people who had been exposed, whether they had developed symptoms of not.

The new iteration says exposed people without symptoms still might warrant a test if they are especially vulnerable to the virus or if one is recommended by their source of medical care or by state or local public health officials.

...Former CDC Director Tom Frieden said that reducing testing among individuals exposed to an infected person could be detrimental.

“Not testing asymptomatic contacts may allow the spread of disease,” he said. There’s a big difference between not testing asymptomatic college students and not testing contacts” of an exposed person.

...Frieden said that, because testing materials and labs’ capacity have been stretched thin, it makes sense to set priorities for who needed to get tested the most. “But that’s not what they’re saying,” he said. “They’re saying don’t test asymptomatic people.” He noted that people who are asymptomatic are able to spread the virus to others before they develop symptoms. “[W]e don’t know what proportion of all spread comes from people who are asymptomatic,” Frieden said. “We know it’s not negligible.”

The new version of the guidance also says that someone who has been in a place with high covid-19 transmission and has attended a public or private gathering of more than 10 people without widespread mask-wearing or physical distancing does “not necessarily need a test” unless that person is a vulnerable individual, or the person’s health-care provider or state or local public health departments recommend a test.

CNN reported yesterday that the change in guidelines came "as a result of pressure from the upper ranks" of the increasingly fascist regime and the decision was made when Fauci was not around. "It's coming from the top down."

Fauci said he is "concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is."

[T]he new directive also lines up with a trend in policy and rhetoric from the White House. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the US should do less testing.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist and associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, said on CNN Newsroom on Wednesday that the CDC has not provided evidence to explain the changes.

"I mean, the evidence that I'm aware of as of today is that close to 40% of the cases of the infections are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people transmit the infection," Del Rio said.

"So, not testing-- I mean, if you have been in contact with somebody for a few minutes, that's okay. But if you have been in contact for 50 minutes and that people doesn't have a mask, I think you need to be tested regardless if you have symptoms or not. We know especially young people going into the house and then transmit inside the household. So, the guidelines baffle me and I really don't understand them."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused the Trump administration of using the CDC as a political tool for the campaign.

"The only plausible rationale is they want fewer people taking tests because, as the president has said, if we don't take tests you won't know that people are covid positive and the number of covid positive people will come down," Cuomo told reporters Wednesday. "It fosters his failed policy of denial," he said of the President.

Although most of the states that are currently having the most cases also have Trump-puppet governors only one of them, Tennessee, is in the top 15 states administering tests. The 15 states with the most new cases Tuesday and Wednesday along with the number of tests per million residents (anything less than a quarter million is failure):

• Texas +12,856 (178,258 tests per million residents)
• California +11,277 (274,162 tests per million residents)
• Florida +5,893 (209,503 tests per million residents)
• Georgia +4,337 (237,406 tests per million residents)
• Illinois +3,837 (302,357 tests per million residents)
• Tennessee +2,749 (307,333 tests per million residents)
• North Carolina +2,631 (202,230 tests per million residents)
• Missouri +2,336 (162,817 tests per million residents)
• Ohio +1,898 (174,663 tests per million residents)
• Virginia +1,828 (190,194 tests per million residents)
• Michigan +1,794 (290,513 tests per million residents)
• Indiana +1,767 (199,433 tests per million residents)
• Mississippi +1,705 (198,965 tests per million residents)
• South Carolina +1,542 (188,889 tests per million residents)
• Arizona +1,045 (196,073 tests per million residents)

UPDATE: Oops! NEVERMIND!

Today, CDC Director Robert Redfield walked back the new Trumpanzee campaign testing guidelines. "Testing," he said, "is meant to drive actions and achieve specific public health objectives. Everyone who needs a COVID-19 test, can get a test. Everyone who wants a test does not necessarily need a test; the key is to engage the needed public health community in the decision with the appropriate follow-up action." A post in Popular Science this morning blasts the Trumpist regime's monkeying around with COVID statistics to help Trump's reelection campaign, claiming that all Redfield has done is further confuse a situation that the Trump Regime has made needlessly confusing to the American people.