Trump administration influenced CDC guidelines to suppress Covid testing, House panel says

The Trump administration sought to abolish the Covid-19 test in the United States last year by relaxing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advice on who should be tested, a House panel said on Monday.

In August, the CDC revised its Covid-19 testing guidelines to say that people who don’t have symptoms “don’t necessarily need a test” even if they have been exposed to an infected person. The move was widely criticized by public health specialists and politicians, who said screening asymptomatic people was an important part of identifying and cutting the chains of spread.

Assistant Secretary of Health Adm. Bret Giroir, who led the Trump administration’s testing effort, at the time strongly denied claims that the White House was pressuring health officials to quash ‘they change the guidelines.

But the special House subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis released newly obtained emails from a political appointee within the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday that indicate he has pushed for the new direction.

In the emails, former HHS science adviser Paul Alexander defended the change in testing policy and downplayed the importance of testing people without symptoms, saying “that is not the purpose of testing.” Alexander was brought to the HHS by Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump ally who led the department’s communications last year before abruptly leaving after accusing CDC scientists of sedition.

“Testing asymptomatic people to look for asymptomatic cases is not the point of testing, because ultimately all this accomplishes is that we end up quarantining low-risk asymptomatic people and preventing labor to work, “Alexander wrote a day after the CDC change of testing advice was reported in an email to other HHS officials.

“From this perspective, it would be unreasonable on the basis of the existing data to have generalized tests on schools and colleges / universities. This will not allow them to reopen in an optimal way”, he added, defending the policy change.

In September, the CDC quietly reversed the guidelines, saying anyone, even without symptoms, who has been in close contact with an infected person needs a Covid-19 test.

Representative James Clyburn, DS.C., chairman of the committee investigating allegations of political influence in the nation’s major health agencies under the Trump administration, said in letters viewed by CNBC to the chief of staff of the White House, Ron Klain, and Acting Secretary of HHS. Norris Cochran that the emails are further evidence of political interference in the CDC under Trump.

The email, Clyburn said in the letters, “shows that political appointees were involved in the decision to change the guidance of the CDC, and that the Trump administration changed the guidance for the explicit purpose of reducing tests and allow the virus to spread while quickly reopening the economy. “

Clyburn added that the committee had requested more documents from the CDC and other agencies “to understand the full scope and impact of Trump’s White House efforts to suppress coronavirus testing.”

Alexander is at the center of the ongoing investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s administration or his members have allowed politics to shape the country’s response to the pandemic. In December, Clyburn published a slew of emails from Alexander and Caputo that showed “a pernicious pattern of political interference by administration officials,” according to Clyburn.