Trump administration muzzled the health agency for months

Fresno CA

Description

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield testified to Congress that the Trump administration effectively muzzled the health agency after a top official made comments about the then-emerging pandemic that spooked the White House. "I've said this publicly before, this is one of my great disappointments. That HHS basically took over total clearance of briefings by CDC," Redfield testified before the House panel tasked with investigating the federal government's response to the pandemic. Redfield's testimony, as he himself alluded to, underscores the CDC's very obvious absence during key moments of the Trump administration's COVID-19 response. As Redfield told lawmakers, this came after CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Nancy Messonnier alerted Americans to the possibility on February 25, 2020, that the pandemic could be "severe." (Yea, Trump did a lot to curb this disease.)