You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

White House Shelves Guidelines on Reopening, as Experts Warn U.S. Failing to Stem COVID-19 Deaths

HeadlineMay 07, 2020

The Associated Press reports a 17-page report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offering step-by-step advice to local leaders on when and how to reopen public places has been shelved, with one CDC official saying the document “would never see the light of day.” On Capitol Hill, the House Appropriations Committee heard testimony Wednesday from two medical experts who said not a single state or territory in the United States has met all of the White House’s own criteria for safely reopening. Dr. Caitlin Rivers, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said states lack adequate diagnostic testing and the capacity to carry out contact tracing. And she warned that many of the states that are reopening have rising rates of coronavirus infections.

Caitlin Rivers: “It’s clear to me that we are in a critical moment of this fight. We risk complacency in accepting the preventable deaths of 2,000 Americans each day. We risk complacency in accepting that our healthcare workers do not have what they need to do their jobs safely. And we risk complacency in recognizing that without continued vigilance, we will again create the conditions that led to us being the worst-affected country in the world.”

Not testifying Wednesday was Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease scientist on the coronavirus task force, who was barred by the White House from appearing before the House Appropriations Committee.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top