Trump officials attacked CDC virus reports, House panel says

[Zorro]

Source: Tampa Bay Times

Trump administration political appointees tried to block or change more than a dozen government reports that detailed scientific findings about the spread of the coronavirus, a House panel investigating the alleged interference said Monday.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said his coronavirus subcommittee investigators have found evidence of a “political pressure campaign” to “bully” professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in what may have been an attempt to “cripple the nation’s coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity.”

Herd immunity is shorthand for a theory — rejected by most public health experts — that society can be best protected by allowing younger people to get infected and develop natural immunity until vaccines are widely available.

Accusing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield of stonewalling his investigation, Clyburn issued subpoenas to compel them to turn over reams of documents and emails by Dec. 30.

Read more: https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/12/21/trump-officials-attacked-cdc-virus-reports-house-panel-says/

[Coleman]

1. Herd immunity is not a theory

[div class="Herd immunity is shorthand for a theory — rejected by most public health experts — that society can be best protected by allowing younger people to get infected and develop natural immunity until vaccines are widely available."]

At best it is a hypothesis, in reality it is just a stab in the dark.

[mr_lebowski]

3. Writer's clearly using 'theory' in the colloquial sense rather than the scientific one

That said, I also deplore such inaccuracies

[agingdem]

4. call it what it is..eugenics

only the purest survive...obviously Azar, Redfield, and Caputo have lifted a page out of a Nazi playbook...

[mr_lebowski]

7. That might be a little extreme of a characterization ...

More of a 'strongest survive' as opposed than 'purest'.

Its only slightly less evil, granted.

[agingdem]

10. Considering covid is infecting and killing

blacks, hispanics, and the elderly at disproportionate rates, I still think its eugenics...only the strong survive but they happen to be white...

[cannabis_flower]

16. It might work....

But only if we could separate all the children from all the adults and keep them separated until they had the virus and weren’t contagious anymore. And it still might not work.

[mr_lebowski]

2. How exactly would you go about making sure that only younger people are getting it

during this process?

I mean, in theory, this plan might sorta work if you were able to do that part ... but it's the impossible mechanics of actually doing so which make it a ridiculous scheme.

I suspect at the heart of it, their polling showed that schools being closed was the #1 thing that was hurting them with voters re: the Rona.

[GopherGal]

6. the Luddite/Sadists' definition of "herd immunity" strikes again

Before these sociopaths, I'd always heard "herd immunity" talked of primarily in the context of vaccination strategies. Never the "let them expose themselves to the virus" approach favored by the maladministration.

Here's the definition I turn up with a quick google search:
[link:https://apic.org/monthly_alerts/herd-immunity/|]

Herd immunity (or community immunity) occurs when a high percentage of the community is immune to a disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness), making the spread of this disease from person to person unlikely.

An example I'd heard of was that a study in Japan showed that the most effective way to protect senior citizens from the flu was to inoculate the grade-school-age population.

Instead, the Trumpistas seems to be taking the opposite approach. It fits nicely with their "the economy/stock market first" mindset. It was always pretty clear that life won't really return to "normal" unless/until schools re-open.

[mr_lebowski]

9. Agreed, me too ...

Attempting to achieve herd immunity through simply exposing people is an incredibly reckless approach, even when the disease has a very low fatality rate among the target population. Esp. when you cannot possibly contain it TO that population.

The key difference between that approach and the vaccination approach is that with a vaccine, nobody GETS the friggin disease and a) won't be harmed by it, and b) is hence not infectious at any point and therefore can't infect anyone else.

The Maladminstration's approach is entirely different from that of the Japanese study.

[PSPS]

11. The whole "open the schools" thing was the convenient weak spot to exploit

In order for trump to exploit the deadly "the economy is fine," "the cure is worse than the disease," "we have it under control" charade, the schools had to reopen so that people could go back to pretending there was nothing wrong. It dovetails with the "masks interfere with my freedom," armed terrorists storming state houses, "I want to still go to the gym and get my tattoo" idiocy of The MAGA.

"Herd immunity" is impossible without a vaccine. They want to push the lie that it doesn't. Sweden, unfortunately, shows us how misguided and deadly that is. Even if it were true that "only younger people get it" (and that isn't true,) even that would just insure a wave of kids that have their whole life ahead of them being chronically sick and disabled. But, since most of that wouldn't be known until after the election, it didn't matter.

The proper way to have dealt with this would have been to lock down for a longer period of time AND provide direct regular payments to every family in the country. But, with the GOP/austerity nonsense being the coin of the realm, we couldn't countenance such a horror!!111!!! OMG!!11! Deadbeats, welfare queens, bootstraps, freeloaders, make more by doing nothing!!!111!!! Hand out trillions to rich corporations and billionaire supporters only!!11!!! MAGA!!11!!!

[mr_lebowski]

12. Exactly what I'm getting at ...

This was a political calculation, NOT one based on science or anybody's health.

This needs to be exposed far and wide.

In theory, though, if you could sequester all the young people and let them get the disease and then survive (the vast majority of the time), this type of herd immunity COULD work (at a significant cost of course) ... BUT you cannot entirely sequester them. Therefore, they're GOING to infect vulnerable people in the process. That's biggest reason this 'plan' is completely idiotic (and evil). IMHO.

As we've both said it was all about getting the schools open because this is was such glaring 'sign that things are not normal', and I'm sure a burden to a LOT of voters.

[PSPS]

13. "and then survive"

So the kid "survives" and goes on to live a life with chronic illness and disability? That's desirable? That's acceptable?

[mr_lebowski]

15. I said at significant cost ...

Obviously a certain % will have horrible problems and/or die, but these numbers are quite low among young people.

I'm not saying it's desirable or acceptable, I'm just saying IF you could 100% sequester all the young people, it's a vaguely theoretically possible approach to, in the end, reducing the total fatality count.

No way it reduces the death count without sequestering them entirely, which will never happen.

Ergo, horrible evil plan.

[William Seger]

17. There's a small problem with the "theory"

We don't really know for sure that getting Covid-19 gives a person long-lasting immunity. If not, this sequestered group would just keep passing it around.

[Ligyron]

18. Precisely.

[orangecrush]

5. KICK

[IsItJustMe]

8. Anyone with an ounce of conscience knows that what they are doing is immoral. But can anyone tell

me why this is not down right illegal?

[Turbineguy]

14. "Trump officials"

They must have names

And police records.

[chowder66]

19. K & R.