White House adviser blames CDC for letting 'the country down' with early testing snags

[alp227]

Source: NBC

WASHINGTON — One of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's early response to the coronavirus spread Sunday, telling NBC's "Meet the Press" the CDC "let the country down" initially with testing problems.

When asked whether Trump had faith in the CDC, White House trade adviser and Defense Production Act coordinator Peter Navarro said that is a question for the president before criticizing the federal health agency’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Early on in this virus, the CDC, which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space, really let the country down with the testing because not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test. And that did set us back,” Navarro said Sunday.

In the early weeks of the pandemic response, the CDC faced technical problems as it sought to develop test kits for a previously unknown virus. Those issues led to faulty results from test kits initially sent by the CDC to labs in January.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/white-house-adviser-blames-cdc-letting-country-down-early-testing-n1208886

[underpants]

1. Sorry but that guy looks like shiny salesman to me.

He has a very accomplished bio but at this point he’s a used car salesman

[alp227]

14. Among those accomplishments: a fictional character

NPR reported in October:

A publishing company plans to add an advisory note to future copies of a book written by White House adviser Peter Navarro, after it was revealed that Navarro fabricated one of the people he quoted.

The character Ron Vara appears in Navarro's 2011 book, Death By China, offering dire warnings about Chinese imports.

"Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon, and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel," Vara is quoted as saying.

[underpants]

16. These people with their books.

Mnuchin’s wife had a rape scenario in a book she wrote.

[atreides1]

18. Really???

I wonder if it was a personal experience...or did she get some pointers from Trump...

[George II]

2. I didn't even have to read past your subject line to know it was Navarro. EVERYTHING to him is....

....someone else's fault.

[Hoyt]

3. CDC clearly messed up, but trump admin didn't respond. That's the problem.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. +1. . . nt

[paleotn]

22. That's exactly where the buck stops.

[Newest Reality]

4. The...

The Ministry of Truth has been very active lately. Praise Big Bother.

Minitrue = ++Good! Choco rations may go up soon, as well.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. And what did tRump do about it? Rally and golf. . . . nt

[RVN VET71]

7. So that's the new story about Covid-19 and the President's failures to deal with it.

I get it, I get it. Trump, the hero and amazing genius -- even doctors are amazed at how much of that stuff he knows and understands -- could have saved us all but for 2 things: Obama and the CDC

1.Obamagate, well, everybody knows what that is, even the lying reporters from CNN. Everybody knows. Trump doesn't have to get into the details but, Obamagate, Obamagate, Obamagate.

2. The CDC, well, there you go again, the agency just couldn't deliver and Trump, clearly and obviously, was meticulously aware of its international reputation for excellence and he was let down by its utter and shocking failure. I mean, Trump let the CDC take care of business because he trusted them and they repaid that trust with failure after failure. Not saying this was a conspiracy, but it sure seems suspicious, doesn't it, that CDC's reputation was so great before Trump and now, when Trump needs it to be great, it somehow fails at everything.

So lock them up! Lock them up!

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

8. The CDC is in which branch of government? n/t

[Botany]

9. No the CDC had an epidemiologist in Wuhan, China until the summer of 2018 and Trump

fired her. China (they are not blameless) isolated the virus and sequenced its genome in November of
2019 and turned that info over to the W.H.O. and they sent "that stuff" onto scientists in Germany and
they made a perfectly good C-19 test kit that has worked all over the world but Trump rejected that test
kit so he and Kushner could invest in their own testing operations and those kits failed miserably.

Lying motherfuckers. And what are we at now 90,000 dead and 1.5 million cases of C-19?

[Igel]

23. yes and no.

The genome they sequenced in January and turned that information over.

The virus was isolated and sequenced in December, and that was suppressed. So that in January they could still say, with a straight face, that it was an unknown virus. "Novel coronavirus" came later. That was actually true for a fair amount of information. Some condemn the PRC for it, some justify the PRC and say that it was really the local government in Hubei/Wuhan responsible. Taiwan continues to say it provided more reliable info in December to the WHO than the PRC did for the first half of January, but the WHO folk can't really even refer to Taiwan and have been known to just ignore or walk away from an answer that requires it.

The German kit was mostly based on previous SARS genomes. It wasn't made by the German government, but a private company that realized it could produce something profitable and useful. It had a high error rate. It was mostly phased out when others came along, except for places that were pretty much unable to afford others.

The resulting "WHO" test kit came online about the same time the CDC's did. But the CDC's was based on the actual genome and would have been better. If the CDC didn't bungle it. S. Korea didn't use the German kit either, you should notice.

The WHO kit wasn't offered. It was available if you wanted it. There's a small difference there, but since there was the better CDC kit, why adopt one that also hadn't received FDA approval? (We care about FDA approval. When it suits us.)


The first cases in China were reported in December. Not November. Later, in February, they found a case from Nov. 14 (17?).

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. It's everyone else's fault, nothing new here. Move along now.

[progree]

11. The Trump administration's decision to forgo a WHO test and create its own ...

How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S., Politico 3/6/20, updated 3/8/20

The Trump administration’s decision to forgo a World Health Organization test and create its own had fateful consequences, experts say.

... By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries.

The United States was not among them.

Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.

The slowness of the testing regimen — which, administration officials acknowledged this week, is still not producing enough tests to meet the national demand — was the first, and most sweeping, of many failures.

But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.

More: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

12. Mrs. Johnson's third grade class in Joplin, Missouri, also failed to do early testing.

See, it's easy to blame anyone else but Trump for his fuck ups. You can't spell "Trump" without "I'm not responsible."

[keithbvadu2]

13. Gee! I wonder whose administration the CDC is part of.

Gee! I wonder whose administration the CDC is part of.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Trump appointed the CDC head, Redfield, and it was criticised at the time

Dr. Robert Redfield appointed CDC director

March 21, 2018

(CNN)Dr. Robert Redfield has been selected as the next director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.
...
Not everyone is welcoming Redfield's appointment. The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a statement urging the administration against naming him to the post, claiming a lack of experience in leading a public health agency, a history of scientific misconduct and support for HIV/AIDS policies that are opposed by most public health experts.

"What one wants in a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a scientist of impeccable scientific integrity. What one would get in Robert Redfield is a sloppy scientist with a long history of scientific misconduct and an extreme religious agenda," Peter Lurie, the center's director and president, said in a statement.

Redfield replaces Dr. Anne Schuchat, who has been serving as interim director since January. The administration's previous pick, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned after reports that she bought tobacco stock after taking her position at the agency, which conflicts with its mission.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/21/health/redfield-cdc-director-bn/index.html

[TheFourthMind]

17. "I Don't Take Responsibility." I hope a list is being put together. n/t

[4139]

19. CDC has a long reputation doing good, but also a long history of screwing up

... going back to swine flu in the 70’s

[Evolve Dammit]

20. Like all govenrmental agencies under Drumpf, they have been taken over by cronies and the career

staffers are either muzzled with examples of other staffers driven out, or intmidated into just shutting up, This is where we are. CDC was a very credible, valuable agency. They still are if competent leadership can be restored, and staff are valued and allowed to do their work.

[paleotn]

21. Early testing for what?

I thought it was a hoax. Donnie said so for weeks and weeks. I'm so confused.

[sakabatou]

24. Trump: The buck doesn't stop here.

[Brainfodder]

25. BULLSHIT! Low quality attempt at shade, we know who knew and did squadoosh for at least 6 weeks?

If you don't know, it's been all covered here on D.U.

Death Count Donnie conspired with at least Plastic Ken to make money from the pandemic?

This is stooges covering for worse stooges?

[Bengus81]

26. He's also blaming people with pre-existing conditions for our huge death numbers

STOP dying now and making Trump look bad you old fucks!!!!! No wait....keep dying and get that many more off the SS and Medicare rolls. Trump could use that cash for his wall.

[samsingh]

27. the cdc works for the trump admin

is everything offered by repugs a lie? they stand for nothing that they claimed they used to:

- no personal accountability
- pro-death not pro-life
- soft on crime
- they love dictatorships
- best friends with former enemies
- embrace the idea of a king. they have made trump their king
- tariffs instead of free trade

the few items they still believe are:
- cutting taxes for the rich
- screwing the middle class and the poor
- no healthcare unless someone is rich
- more money for big corporations, nothing for anyone else
- male white privilege