Addendum: A whistleblower claims that CDC wanted to advise elderly and fragile people to not fly on commercial airlines, but removed this advice at the White House’s direction.
Where the CDC and White House are in conflict, I believe the CDC is more credible (and I believe this is consensus); however, this looks like a clear-cut case where the CDC’s political situation forced it to be less honest and understate risk.
The person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity did not have authorization to talk about the matter. The person did not have direct knowledge about why the decision to kill the language was made or who made the call.
That doesn’t seem a really strong source for the claim or what exactly was said. Sounds like a fair degree of reading between lines based on an observation (passage removed). The administration refutes the claim.
On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — the head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force — said “no one overruled anybody.”
But, how many of this class of people have been infected (or infected others) due to flying? Alternatively, how do those numbers stack up to cruise ship travels? Did the CDC provide advice on that?
Also missing, from what I can tell, is the date of these events—when did CDC want to provide that advise, when did the decision to make the edit occur? They did update their website last Friday.
If we’re splitting that hair then one should be questioning if any whistle was being blown or if simple hearsay was reported by AP. However, Fauci certainly seems to be a person that would have direct knowledge so one might take his statement as factual and so a refutation of the reported hearsay.
Addendum: A whistleblower claims that CDC wanted to advise elderly and fragile people to not fly on commercial airlines, but removed this advice at the White House’s direction.
Where the CDC and White House are in conflict, I believe the CDC is more credible (and I believe this is consensus); however, this looks like a clear-cut case where the CDC’s political situation forced it to be less honest and understate risk.
This is a very useful point.
That doesn’t seem a really strong source for the claim or what exactly was said. Sounds like a fair degree of reading between lines based on an observation (passage removed). The administration refutes the claim.
But, how many of this class of people have been infected (or infected others) due to flying? Alternatively, how do those numbers stack up to cruise ship travels? Did the CDC provide advice on that?
Also missing, from what I can tell, is the date of these events—when did CDC want to provide that advise, when did the decision to make the edit occur? They did update their website last Friday.
I think we should say “the administration denies the claim”.
If we’re splitting that hair then one should be questioning if any whistle was being blown or if simple hearsay was reported by AP. However, Fauci certainly seems to be a person that would have direct knowledge so one might take his statement as factual and so a refutation of the reported hearsay.
Maybe related: https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/status/1238870221672386563