How the Trump administration killed thousands of Americans

Jeff Danziger

The New York Times on March 21, 2023:

....To the scientists gathered outside[in early March, 2020], trainees in the agency’s vaunted Epidemic Intelligence Service, the implication was clear: C.D.C. leaders realized that the virus was being spread not just by people who were coughing and sneezing, but also by people who were not visibly ill. 

But the agency had not yet warned the public.

“All of us knew tens of thousands were going to die, and we were helpless to stop it,” said Dr. Daniel Wozniczka, one of the trainees. “It was really heartbreaking and difficult on a psychological level not to be able to do anything.”

It is generally known that morale at the C.D.C. plummeted as Trump administration officials sought to squelch dissent among career scientists who disagreed with the White House’s handling of the pandemic. 

But few employees have described the despair inside the beleaguered agency as hospitals overflowed with patients and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues.

Interviews with 11 current and former agency employees, including trainees at the E.I.S., as well as a review of text messages and other documents obtained by The New York Times, portray an agency under intense pressure from the country’s political leaders. 

Some younger staff members wrestled with guilt, anger and a rising sense of powerlessness as administration officials meddled with or simply disregarded important scientific research....

Rob's comment:

The hed on the online version: ‘We Were Helpless’: Despair at the C.D.C. as the Pandemic Erupted. 

The hard copy hed of that story was more succinct on the Trump administration's political malpractice: "Political Meddling and the Pandemic." 

Which comes first in the process---how and why?---the lame online version or the punchy hard copy hed?

The Atlantic lists Trump's 2020 lies: All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus.

See also The Trump Pandemic: How the president killed thousands of Americans.

See also this.

Trump threatens New York district attorney with baseball bat.