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.

The Chris Wallace Interview-- Fox Viewers Finally See What A Lying, Incompetent Boob They Support

Trump lied repeatedly during his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox yesterday. It amazed me that Wallace let him get away with his oft repeated distortion of how the U.S. tests more people than any other country in the world. Forget for a moment that Trump opposes testing and that it is done by states and that Trump is trying to defund those state programs. Instead let's just look at the number of tests that have been done per million residents:

• Iceland- 327,387 tests per million Vikings
• Denmark- 225,564 tests per million Danes
• U.K.- 193,109 tests per million Brits
• Russia- 169,092 tests per million Russians
• Israel- 153,507 tests per million Israelis
• U.S.- 143,759 tests per million Americans

It's important to note that many of the states with the worst upticks in new cases are the states with the least testing. These states are all having dangerous one day case increases and none of their testing rises to the level of that being done in most developed countries with case increases:

• Ohio- 97,039 tests per million Buckeyes
• Missouri- 98,386 tests per million Missourans
• Wyoming- 108,152 tests per million Trumpist fanatics
• Texas- 108,761 tests per million Texans
• South Dakota- 109,927 tests per million Dakotans
• Alabama- 116,953 tests per million Alabamans
• South Carolina- 118,560 tests per million South Carolinians
• Oklahoma- 121,190 tests per million Oklahomans

Talking Points Memo chose their 5 worst moments to focus on-- and they all were doozies! No doubt this will result in Trump going on the attack against Wallace and against Fox for "making him look bad."

Doubling down on his claim of coronavirus “disappearing” someday

When Wallace confronted Trump regarding his predictions about the coronavirus “disappearing” someday, Trump replied that he’ll be “right eventually.”

When asked about his administration’s recent efforts to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci-- which include an unnamed White House official sending a memo to news outlets last week criticizing Fauci’s past comments on the coronavirus that later turned out to be inaccurate-- Trump first replied that “we’re not” before repeating his line that although the nation’s top infectious disease expert has “made some mistakes,” he has a “very good relationship” with Fauci.

After Trump went on to call Fauci “a little bit of an alarmist,” the President argued that he will be “right eventually” about his previous claim that the coronavirus will “disappear.”

Defending the Confederate flag

Pressed on whether the Confederate flag is offensive,” Trump said “it depends.”

“It depends on who you’re talking about, when you’re talking about,” Trump said. “When people proudly have their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism. They love their flag, it represents the South, they like the South. People right now like the South. I’d say it’s freedom of, of, of many things, but it’s freedom of speech.”

Wallace then asked if he’s offended by the Confederate flag.

“Well, I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter,” Trump said. “That’s freedom of speech.”

Piling on more attacks against Biden

Upon being shown a Fox News poll that indicates Biden leading him by eight points, Trump denied that he’s losing because “those are fake polls.”

“They were fake in 2016 and now they’re even more fake,” Trump said. “The polls were much worse in 2016.”

The President then claimed, without evidence, that he has “other polls” showing that he’s leading, before going on to slamming Biden because he “can’t put two sentences together.”

‘They wheeled him out, he goes up, he repeats, they ask him questions, he reads the teleprompter and then he goes back into his basement,” Trump said. “You tell me the American people want to have that in an age where we are in trouble with other nations that are looking to do numbers on us.”

Griping about his inability to hold rallies amid the COVID-19 pandemic

After railing against Democrats for “purposely keeping their schools closed,” Trump displayed his dissatisfaction over being unable to hold rallies in states led by Democratic governors.

“I called Michigan. I want to have a big rally in Michigan. You know we are not allowed to have a rally in Michigan?” Trump said. “Do you know we are not allowed to have a rally in Minnesota? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Nevada? We’re not allowed to have rallies in these Democrat-run states.”

Refusing to guarantee he will accept the results of the November election

After Trump doubled down on his baseless claim that mail-in voting will “rig the election,” Wallace asked if he’s suggesting that he might not accept the election in November.

“I have to see,” Trump said, before repeating his assertion when pressed on the question again.

The NY Times also published an article on 5 take-aways, although not in regard to the Fox interview-- Inside the Failure: 5 Takeaways on Trump’s Effort to Shift Responsibility. Believe me, it's related. Michael Shear reported that Señor Trumpanzee and his cronies "decided to shift primary responsibility for the coronavirus response to the states during a critical period of weeks in mid-April, eagerly seizing on overly optimistic predictions that the pandemic was fading so the president could reopen the economy and focus on his re-election... [C]ritical decisions about the handling of the virus during that crucial period were made not by the better known coronavirus task force, but by a small group of White House aides who convened each morning in the office of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff. One of their goals: to justify declaring victory in the fight against the virus. In that effort they frequently sought validation from Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a highly regarded infectious disease expert, who was the chief evangelist in the West Wing for the idea that infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly."

Shear reminds his readers that "despite warnings from state officials and other public health experts," the murderous Orange Menace "stuck to a deliberate strategy by pushing responsibility onto the states almost immediately after introducing reopening guidelines. Then he quickly undermined the guidelines by urging Democratic governors to 'liberate' their states from those very restrictions." Here are two of the take-aways Shear included:

Trump’s handoff of responsibility had consequences

The president’s bizarre public statements, his refusal to wear a mask and his pressure on states to get their economies going again left governors and state officials scrambling to address a leadership vacuum that complicated their efforts to deal with the virus.

In one case, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was told that if he wanted the federal government to help obtain the swabs needed to test for the virus, he would have to ask Mr. Trump himself-- and thank him.

After offering to help acquire 350,000 testing swabs during an early morning conversation with one of Mr. Newsom’s advisers, Mr. Kushner made it clear that the federal help would hinge on the governor doing him a favor.

“The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, had to call Donald Trump, and ask him for the swabs,” recalled the adviser, Bob Kocher, an Obama-era White House health care official.

Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, a Republican, said that the White House approach had only one focus: reopening businesses, instead of anticipating how cities and states should respond if cases surged again.

“It was all predicated on reduction, open, reduction, open more, reduction, open,” he said. “There was never what happens if there is an increase after you reopen?

The White House was slow to recognize it had been wrong

Not until early June did White House officials even begin to recognize that their assumptions about the course of the pandemic had proved wrong.

In task force meetings, officials discussed whether the spike in cases across the South was related to crowded protests over the killing of George Floyd or perhaps a fleeting side effect of Memorial Day gatherings.

Digging into new data from Dr. Birx, they soon concluded that the virus was in fact spreading with invisible ferocity during the weeks in May when states were opening up with Mr. Trump’s encouragement and many were all but declaring victory.

Even now, there are internal divisions over how far to go in having officials publicly acknowledge the reality of the situation.