The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals, blasted President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in an editorial published online Thursday.
“Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics,” the authors concluded, in an editorial titled, “Reviving the US CDC.”
More from CNN: They strongly condemned actions by the Trump administration that they say “chipped away” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s capacity to combat Covid-19. “The (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation’s public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus,” the authors said. They criticized the Trump administration for leaving “an intelligence vacuum” in China by cutting back CDC staff in the country just as Covid-19 began to emerge, and pointed to an instance where a prominent CDC doctor was sidelined from news briefings after warning the US to prepare for major disruptions due to the virus. They also accused the Trump administration of “punishing the agency by marginalising and hobbling it” after it failed to produce high-quality diagnostic tests early in the outbreak.
Read the full editorial here
