Ex-US President Donald Trump pressurised CDC officials to alter COVID data: Report

In a major blow for the former US President Donald Trump, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis has claimed he had pressurised the national public health agency to alter the COVID-19 figures, reported news agency Sputnik on Saturday. According to the Russian news agency, the then US President repeatedly ordered the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to alter the scientific data related to the deadly virus during his tenure. Citing the interviews of several CDC officials, Sputnik said the health agency's former principal deputy director, Dr Anne Schuchat, said that the officials were "muzzled" by the Trump administration and were ordered not to utter a single word on the coronavirus pandemic.

During an interview with CNN, the news agency noted that the top CDC official was upset over the issues of using the national health agency to tamper with the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). However, she stressed that her organisation had gone beyond their limit to stop the Trump administration from intervening in the day to day movement of CDC. "It took an active effort for her organisation to make sure that the attempts [to alter the reports] were not successful," Sputnik quoted the top CDC official as saying during an interview. 

'Trump had ordered the CDC department to stop the CDC's weekly guidance'

However, this was not the first time when a health official accused the then US President of his alleged interference in the tampering of COVID data. Citing the earlier interview of the Trump appointee and former US Health and Human Services Adviser Paul Alexander, she said that the 45th US President had ordered the CDC department to stop the CDC's weekly guidance.
"It was highly unusual and quite concerning for somebody to ask to put an immediate stop on MMWR reports. I don't think in my memory that has ever happened. And, to be accused - because it is accusatory language - that MMWR content is designed to harm our commander-in-chief," Sputnik quoted Dr Anne Schuchat as saying. 

CDC officials always put the Trump administration under the lens

Besides Alexander, she also quoted the interviews of Dr Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator, in which she accused the Trump administration of forcing the health officials to alter the data of the deadly pandemic. 
It is worth mentioning that the then US President had on several occasions bolstered that his works related to the handling of the COVID pandemic had helped the country to get out of the deadly pandemic. However, irrespective of his claims, the CDC officials always put his statement under the lens.

Image: AP