Newly Released CDC Guidelines For Reopening 'Vague' And 'Watered Down'

By Aliza Worthington — May 15, 2020

On Thursday afternoon, the CDC guidelines for opening up were finally released...allegedly. These were supposedly the guidelines that the CDC had prepared that officials had been told would "never see the light of day" because they were too involved and required too much of people in order to keep them alive and whatnot.

This news broke during Deadline White House, so Nicolle Wallace had Shannon Pettypiece summarize the news, which is basically that now there is centralized CDC guidance for businesses on how to open safely, instead of each state, and each business having to do their own research and develop their own practices about how to reopen without killing their customers.

But, is it truly guidance? Wallace managed to get Dr. Leana Wen, who'd been on the show earlier in the hour back on camera to get her thoughts. Suffice it to say, she was unimpressed.

DR. WEN: So, I'm just going through these guidelines myself, but what I'm seeing, and it's the first thing that's really striking, is that they don't sound like what the CDC normally puts out. That they seem to be pretty vague and actually watered down. I mean, there's language in there about encouraging social distancing, but what exactly does that mean? We need a lot more specifics. I was looking over the sections, in particular on child care facilities as a mom of a toddler, and for example, it talked about when -- it talked about encouraging people to stay at home. Sick people to stay at home. Really? We're encouraging them to stay at home if they're sick, not requiring them to? Or when feasible, wearing a facial covering. But we should just state it as it is and that seems to be a big departure from how the CDC normally talks.

WALLACE: How would that happen, Dr. Wen? What would be -- and as Bob Woodward says, the truth always emerges. What would the intervening act BE for the CDC to put out something that doesn't sound like the CDC?

DR. WEN: I could imagine that a first draft, maybe that the draft that the AP first obtained went to officials, Dr. Birx and other folks who then added language that qualified it in some way. But you know what? That's not what we need. I mean, regulators, business owners, schoolteachers, they need to know exactly what it is that we should do, not just look at your ventilation system, but what exactly should they be looking at? What are the cleaning procedures that should be implemented? What activities are prohibited and what's allowed? That's the type of specific guidance that we expect from the CDC, and at least from my quick read, it's not there in the detail that we would normally expect.

I LOVE how Nicolle Wallace zeros right in on the nefarious aspect of this administration, and asks, Gee, Dr. Wen, what might have HAPPENED to those guidelines between the time the CDC wrote them and the time they got released, hmmmmm? And Dr. Wen says, "Well, someone probably f*cked with them. And how helpful is it too tell people to just look at their ventilation systems?"

Seriously, *I* could look at *my* ventilation system! I'm doing it right now! Is it helping protect anyone from COVID-19? I KINDA DOUBT IT.

Then Wallace asked David Jolly (former Florida Congressional rep) his impression of these newly released guidelines. As always, he did not hold back.

JOLLY: I imagine we'll find out as much of what we already know about how this administration operates, which is they view everything through a political lens, and the lens that is the ego of Donald Trump. And so, if there is a message that interferes with that, if there's a message -- a public health message emerging out of CDC that complicates the message that Trump actually wants to deliver, regardless of whether or not Trump's message is accurate, or in the best interest of the nation, you will see it, perhaps, watered down or you'll see it put on the shelf. At the end of the day, throughout this entire pandemic, Nicolle, the White House -- not just Donald Trump, Mike Pence as well, and the officials, Jared Kushner, probably Ivanka, all of them had more and better information than anybody in the United States ever had, and they refused to share 100% accurate information with the American people. They risked the lives of the American people to protect the ego and the political interests of the president of the United States, and I am sure this story of the shelved CDC guidelines, when we get to the bottom of it, will affirm that once again this was about what makes Donald Trump look best, not what is in the best interest of the American people and their health.

This entire administration is complicit. Jolly puts it into language that paints the cruelest of pictures...Trump, Pence, Kushner, Ivanka, all of them and their confidantes had better information than the people who pay their salaries. The people they are supposed to serve. The people they're supposed to protect. And they kept that information to themselves, and muzzled anyone else who wanted to share it, just to swaddle Trump's eggshell ego in the warm fuzzy blankie it needs to feel safe.