COVID-19 Update

USA

• New Cases:  46,000
• New Deaths:      879

NYT:

C.D.C. Testing Guidance Was Published Against Scientists’ Objections

A controversial guideline saying people without Covid-19 symptoms didn’t need to get tested for the virus came from H.H.S. officials and skipped the C.D.C.’s scientific review process.

A heavily criticized recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by C.D.C. scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections, according to several people familiar with the matter as well as internal documents obtained by The New York Times.

The guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus. It came at a time when public health experts were pushing for more testing rather than less, and administration officials told The Times that the document was a C.D.C. product and had been revised with input from the agency’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield.

But officials told The Times this week that the Department of Health and Human Services did the rewriting and then “dropped” it into the C.D.C.’s public website, flouting the agency’s strict scientific review process.

“That was a doc that came from the top down, from the H.H.S. and the task force,” said a federal official with knowledge of the matter, referring to the White House task force on the coronavirus. “That policy does not reflect what many people at the C.D.C. feel should be the policy.”

So while President Stoopid does indulge in spreading a lot of crappy info, he doesn't have to do that because his pals do it for him - his main job is to shrug and pretend it's all just opinion and nobody has to do anything they don't feel like doing, as long as what they're doing doesn't interfere with him getting what he wants.

That's pretty much where we are now - or where we're about to be. That's what this new(ish) Radical Libertarianism is - it's sold to us as the freedom to do what you want, but the way it works is: the freedom to do what you're told. 

And if I go along with it, I can deputize myself and assume the freedom to punish anyone for doing anything I think is in opposition to the dogma - remembering always that "the dogma" is a fairly simple matter of combining whatever Trump says, plus whatever I decide he means by what he says.