A major not-for-profit media research publication/webpage is claiming the Centers for Disease Control underestimated the threat to the spreading coronavirus.
They also claim the agency ‘botched’ the response to the virus as it started to take hold in United States.
ProPublica reports they have hundreds of pages of documents supporting the claim.
The page also says there was chaos at the agency which lead to a slowed response to the illness.
As the agency was struggling to understand the spread of coronavirus, it was engaged in a job recruitment drive to meet the needed staffers--not for handling the coming pandemic--but to track down paperwork the agency mislaid or lost.
“Help needed urgently,” the missive said amid “an ongoing issue” with organizing — and at times even misplacing — material sent by local agencies about Americans believed to be infected.
In one instance, according to ProPublica, the CDC sent documents to the state of Nevada saying there were 80 cases in their state needing to be monitored. However, four of the reported cases resided in New York.
Another mistake shows, as the agency scrambled for fresh employees through job posts, there were already 15-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US, but this came just two weeks before California reported its first community (non-direct) transmission of the disease.
When Nevada health officials asked about congressional funding to fight the disease. The agency responded: “There seems to be a communications blackout on this end,” wrote the program manager, who wondered how the money would be allocated.
In response to the ProPublica’s report the CDC issued a statement: “CDC never declined a request for testing that came from a state or local health department.”
