Coronavirus tally: Trump aides blocked health officials from providing accurate information to Americans, report finds

Trump administration aides “usurped control of CDC communications and blocked public health officials from providing accurate information about the coronavirus to the American people,” the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, led by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, said in a report released Monday, as CNN reported. In its third investigation into the government response to the pandemic, Democratic officials spoke with several senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including former CDC head Dr. Robert Redfield, and heard that Trump officials blocked it from giving information to the public early on in the crisis. The 91-page report found that Trump and his team ” “installed political operatives who sought to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic.” The report comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where the data are not being collected. The daily average for new cases stood at 37,655 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 17% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 4% at 26,413, while the daily average for deaths is down 7% to 357. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 625.2 million on Tuesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.56 million with the U.S. leading the world with 96.9 million cases and 1,065,441 deaths.