Trump official pressured CDC to change report on Covid and kids

[sabra]

Source: Politico

In early September, as many school districts were still deciding whether to hold in-person classes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention altered the title of a scientific report on the coronavirus and removed words like "pediatric" from its text, days after a Trump administration appointee requested similar changes, according to emails obtained by POLITICO.

That request — issued by then-public affairs official Paul Alexander — came amid President Donald Trump's broader push to reopen schools, with the president issuing demands on Twitter the prior day that "Democrats, OPEN THE SCHOOLS ( SAFELY)," and holding a press conference that touted data on the relatively low risk of Covid-19 for children.

"On schools, as part of our science-based approach, we want schools to safely open and stay open," Trump told reporters on Sept. 10. "Children are at extremely low risk of complications from the virus."

The Sept. 11 email exchange between Alexander and other officials centered on an embargoed CDC bulletin set to publish the following week and which Alexander — an unpaid assistant professor at Canada’s McMaster University who was recruited by longtime Trump operative Michael Caputo — said contained faulty science. For instance, defining teenagers aged 18 and older as "pediatric" patients was "misleading," Alexander wrote to Charlotte Kent, the editor-in-chief of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports. Alexander also said that the document wrongly conflated the risks of the coronavirus to young children and older adolescents, urging Kent to make multiple changes to the document.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/trump-cdc-coronavirus-report-change-425538

[CaptYossarian]

1. Trump's resorts have bedbugs and his administration has cockroaches.

A giant roach motel for 20 years is appropriate.

[Initech]

2. Jared Kushner's apartment complexes are also roach motels too.

Pretty much everyone connected to Trump is dirty and crooked. No surprise he has the virus.

[Igel]

3. Except that the break point for minors is around age 12.

11-13 the course of the virus seems to change. Below that, relatively low risk of much of anything.

After that, a sharp increase in symptoms, then close and close to adult-like symptoms and outcomes as you reach age 20. It plots nicely on a graph.

Merging the two groups is like what the press has done with adults. As you go from 20 to 50 there's a very slight increase--not quite flat. Around 60 the curve starts to rise, but 61 isn't that much different from 60. The real break is around age 65, where risk of severe symptoms and outcomes quickly rise and peak in the mid-70s. Conflating 20 and 50 isn't great, but saying "adult" mixes two rather distinct groups.

[CaptYossarian]

4. That is the rxplanation we should have gotten instead of just vomiting basic facts.

Thank you for sharing that.