Since Donald Trump did away with almost every ounce of his predecessor’s pandemic response team and only recently replaced it with his own “Coronavirus Task Force” — consisting of a few “professionals” and one dimwit in charge who tried to pray AIDS away in Indiana — as COVID-19 rapidly wreaks havoc on our country, he and his “team” have been holding daily press briefings surrounding the virus.
Frankly, those briefings mostly just consist of a couple of minutes of talk from whatever professional Donald thinks is most likely to push his narrative and the rest of it is filled with barely coherent ramblings from Pence and Trump in which they contradict themselves more times than I knew to be humanly possible.
The things are almost insufferable.
But according to a new report from Washington Post reporter Lena Sun, not only are they virtually intolerable, they’re actually creating a real problem for the people that desperately need to get legitimate information out to the American public.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
“Neither CDC Director Robert Redfield nor Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director who has played key roles in CDC’s emergency responses stretching back two decades, including the 2009 influenza pandemic, have appeared behind the podium during White House coronavirus task force briefings for more than a week,” Sun writes.
The CDC, who allegedly haven’t held a phone briefing for reporters in over a week, has already faced a boatload of backlash as a result of their less-than-satisfactory testing availability. Now Trump’s incessant and frankly useless press briefings have caused major conflict issues surrounding the Center for Disease Control’s pertinent messages about social distancing and hygiene habits.
Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Tom Inglesby told the Post, “It is confusing for the public to have CDC say no gatherings of more than 50 people, and the next day, the task force says no gatherings of more than 10 people. If the information has changed, tell everyone why. Let’s make sure everyone is on the same page.”
Sources speaking to the media outlet revealed that the schedule coming out of the White House often steps on that of the CDC’s, resulting in “chaos on timing” when it comes to delivering crucial information to the American public.
“Ever since [Pence’s] team took over the response, they have treated the outbreak as a public relations crisis as much as a public health crisis and have tightly managed communications of top health and administration officials, officials have said,” the report continues.
Is it seriously too much to ask for him to just get out of the way and allow the professionals to do their damn job before we’re all screwed?
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via screen capture
Like what you see here? Join the discussion on Facebook over at Americans For Sanity!
