CDC School Reopening Guidelines are Being Subverted and the Public Deceived

In May, the AP reported that the CDC had released detailed guidelines on reopening the economy, but the Trump administration buried the report and wanted it to never be released. In a May 6 article,
Trump administration buries detailed CDC advice on reopening, the AP released a portion of the report that provided seven flow charts for reopening various parts of the economy, including schools, child care facilities, churches and restaurants and bars. The charts for school, workplaces, church and restaurant and bar reopenings are shown below.

From the charts, it is perfectly clear why the president did not want the public to see the CDC report or the flow charts. They are devastating. They make clear how poor the federal response has been compared to what real, non-political experts recommended back in May. In all seven areas of the economy, the very first guideline is the same: Is the (school, church, workplace, etc.) in a community no longer requiring significant mitigation? If the answer is no, then in all cases the recommended action is do not reopen. If the answer to the first guideline is yes, then for school reopenings, 13 more guidelines need to be met before a school or facility can be reopened and monitored.

At present, few or no schools are in a position to reopen. The president's recent push to force schools to reopen is not just sabotage of the US response to the pandemic. It is treason.

Apparently, due to AP reporting of the leaked flow charts, the president ordered the CDC to release the full report. To minimize public notice about the report, the release was not accompanied by a press release. The president felt a need to minimize the public's knowledge of the contents of the report.

On May 8, the AP reported this:

“White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance. 

This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30. 

As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.” 

The president and McEnany were clearly lying about the status of the CDC report to provide a false excuse for why it was not made public. Remember Ms. McEnany’s first press briefing? She said “I will never lie to you.” That was a lie.

The president’s sabotage gets even worse

Within the last few days, multiple sources reported that new CDC guidance on school reopening that was radically different from the guidance that leaked to the public and was then released in May. The ensuing confusion was predictable. It turned out that the White House edited the guidance to water it down, but released it as a CDC document to make school reopenings seem at least plausible on advice from experts.

In this political document, the White House suggested that schools keep students in small groups, with one teacher staying with the same group all day. It also suggested using outdoor spaces and planning for what to do when someone in a school tests positive, e.g., contact tracing. A July 24 New York Times article, C.D.C. Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks, commented that “the agency’s statement followed earlier criticism from President Trump that its guidelines for reopening were too ‘tough.’”

Digression - personal rant: That NYT reporting was nonsense. The new guidelines were from our heartless, self-serving president and his political enabler goons, not the CDC public health experts. The title should have been explicit that the document was from the president, not the CDC, i.e., The President Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks. This exemplifies why I consider the professional mainstream media to generally be doing grade D or D- level work when it comes to dealing with our corrupt, treasonous, chronic liar president. The MSM keeps giving the president passes that he does not deserve. The MSM still has not learned its lesson from 2016.

A July 25 article by the Washington Post, more accurately titled, Confused by CDC’s changing guidance on school reopening? Here are recommendations from experts not pressured by the White House: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued new guidance on how schools can reopen safely for the 2020-21 school year — and, as it turns out, some of it was edited in the White House. That could help explain why there is little discussion about the risks of returning to school buildings, which President Trump has been demanding for a few weeks.”

Clearly, that is sabotage by a president who has no concern for anything other than his re-election. Public health and needless sickness and deaths are of no concern to this president, except to the extent they are obstacles to re-election. The heartless cruelty of this extremely dangerous man is on full display to see for anyone willing to look.

A segment from Rachael Maddow on this matter is shown below.





Of interest in Maddow’s segment is the graph shown below. That data makes it clear that the US response has been and still is a failure. The president and the GOP leadership deserves all reasonable responsibility for the incompetence and failures, the thousands of needlessly lost lives and the needless economic losses that run in the trillions.