WASHINGTON — Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to revise, delay and even scuttle weekly reports on the coronavirus that they believed were unflattering to President Trump. They confirmed an article in Politico Friday night that the C.D.C.’s public morbidity reports, which one former top health official described on Saturday as the “holiest of the holy” in agency literature, have been targeted for months by senior officials in the health department’s communications office. The reports are written largely for scientists and public health experts, updating them on trends in all infectious diseases, Covid-19 included. They are guarded so closely by agency staff members that political appointees only see them just before they are published. Health department officials have typically only received notice of the titles of the reports.

Source: New York Times September 12, 2020 19:35 UTC