CDC director Rochelle Walensky. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
CDC director Rochelle Walensky told the Washington Post on Monday that "a vast minority" of the agency's COVID-19 pandemic response guidelines had been "politically swayed" by some staff appointed by former President Trump.
Driving the news: Walensky said CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat was leading a review into the matter and that the agency was updating affected guidelines.
Between the lines: While Walensky did not cite specific examples in her interview, the Post notes that CDC officials had previously complained of political interference from the Trump administration on mask-wearing guidelines and the reopening of churches.
- In December, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the chair of the oversight subcommittee tasked with examining the U.S. pandemic response, accused then-CDC chief Robert Redfield of concealing evidence that a Trump appointee attempted to influence the agency's scientific case studies.
- Politico reported in September that Trump-appointed health department aides interfered with the CDC's weekly COVID-19 reports "in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports' authors and water down their communications to health professionals."