CDC temporarily halts testing for several infectious diseases amid staffing shortages

Federal agency, which normally supports state and local public health labs, has been hobbled by staff departures…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/02/cdc-infectious-diseases-testing

 

Bird Flu, Measles, and Trump’s Ticking Time Bomb (Reveal podcast)

On this week’s episode of “More To The Story,” how public health emergencies and the dismantling of federal agencies are colliding.

This month marks the five-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed 1.2 million people in the US alone. While life has returned to normal for most Americans, the threats to our health haven’t disappeared. Hundreds of people in the US continue to die of Covid each week, while millions more suffer complications from Long Covid. We’re experiencing the worst flu season in at least 15 years. There are multiple outbreaks of measles, the most serious occurring in an undervaccinated West Texas community. Then there’s the threat of bird flu, which has spread through dairy and poultry farms, sickening dozens of people and killing one so far.

At the same time, the second Trump administration has been actively reshaping and even dismantling the country’s public health infrastructure. Hundreds of employees across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Food and Drug Administration have been handed termination notices. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s new secretary of health and human services, still questions the use of vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccine to prevent measles.

On this week’s episode of More To The Story, host Al Letson talks with infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera about the collision course between the Trump administration’s health priorities and developing public health emergencies.

Rivera says the US is still not testing enough people to determine whether these diseases and others are spreading. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is making things even more difficult by withholding regular public health data that infectious disease experts routinely rely on to assess whether a larger health emergency is emerging. “Without good data, we can’t make good informed choices,” she says. “And it is conceivable that [a pandemic] can be happening and brewing right underneath our nose and us not pick it up.”
Interview: 

https://revealnews.org/podcast/bird-flu-measles-rfk-trump-covid/

 

FDA suspends milk quality-control testing program after Trump layoffs

The suspension is another disruption to the nation's food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/22/fda-milk-quality-testing-suspended

 

Emails reveal new details of Trump White House interference in CDC Covid planning - POLITICO

… "This document resulted in less testing and less — less aggressive testing of those without symptoms that I believed were the primary reason for the early community spread," Birx said, adding that the change in the guidance was not based on science...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/12/trump-cdc-covid-521128

Does PCR testing work?

A look at internet claims that PCR testing for SARS-Cov-2 has a high failure rate.
https://youtu.be/9H2YA0JvfRc

Rapid Testing Is Less Accurate Than the Government Wants to Admit — ProPublica

Rapid antigen testing is a mess. The federal government pushed it out without a plan, and then spent weeks denying problems with false positives.

https://www.propublica.org/article/rapid-testing-is-less-accurate-than-the-government-wants-to-admit

Report: Government spending on testing and tracing pays for itself more than 30 times over - Axios

Government spending on testing and contact tracing pays for itself more than 30 times over, according to a new paper published by the American Medical Association.....
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-investment-eca1e901-8cbe-4015-b77a-594e4dc6c16d.html

This Is a Scandal: Trump Knew He’d Been Exposed to COVID and Went to Raise Money Anyway – Mother Jones

He knew. Before the president went to a fundraiser Thursday in New Jersey with some 150 close donors—where, it seems, masks were less visible than gaudy shows of money—Trump knew that he potentially had the coronavirus. It just seems he didn’t care. Hope Hicks, a close aide, had already tested positive when he flew in. Trump went to raise money anyway. And in the meantime, he tried to hide from the press that Hicks even had the coronavirus at all. Like a child—like himself just a few months ago—he hoped, like magic, it would all “go away.” It did not.....
https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/10/trump-knew-coronavirus-fundraiser-scandal/

Chris Wallace on Fox News: President Trump arrived late, was not tested for Covid-19 at debate

Chris Wallace, the moderator of the first presidential debate, said on Fox News that President Trump arrived late and was not tested for Covid-19 at the event. The city of Cleveland also came out with a statement earlier today, saying that there are now 11 confirmed Covid-19 cases in relation to the debate, which could include top White House officials, members of the media, or others who were involved.....
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/10/02/chris-wallace-on-fox-news-president-trump-arrived-late-was-not-tested-for-covid-19-at-debate.html

Number-cruncher: the devastating power of Katie Porter's whiteboard

The California congresswoman used the old-school device to win free Covid-19 testing for Americans and she’s not done yet....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/01/katie-porter-whiteboard-congresswoman

Bill Gates: It's 'outrageous' Americans can't get coronavirus test results in 24 hours

Microsoft co-founder and global health philanthropist Bill Gates criticized the current state of the United States’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic on Sunday, including slow turnaround times for tests. Gates told “Fox News Sunday” that the access to fast testing is still inadequate more than six months into the pandemic and that the U.S. was set up for a rough fall of virus cases. “Even today, people don’t get their results in 24 hours. It’s outrageous that we still have that,” Gates said....
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/20/bill-gates-its-outrageous-americans-cant-get-coronavirus-test-results-in-24-hours.html

CDC Covid testing guidelines were watered down despite internal objections – report

Guidance about coronavirus testing posted in August on the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was not written by the agency’s scientists and was posted despite their objections, the New York Times has reported, citing people familiar with the matter and internal documents. The guidance deemed it unnecessary to test people with no symptoms of Covid-19, even if they had been exposed.....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/18/cdc-was-made-to-publish-watered-down-covid-testing-guidelines-report

CDC reverses COVID-19 guidance, says testing may not be needed after exposure

The change comes as experts continue to push for more testing, not less. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-covid-19-guidance-says-testing-may-not-be-n1238013

Louisiana’s Covid test proposal would exclude 'thousands' from mail-in voting

Election official wants to require a positive diagnosis for mail-in voters despite lags in testing https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/18/louisiana-election-proposal-positive-covid-test-mail-in-voting

97,000 children reportedly test positive for coronavirus in two weeks as schools gear up for instruction - CBS News

Nearly 100,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics finds. Just over 97,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus from July 16 to July 30, according to the association. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-kids-schools-in-person-instruction/

Opinion | Trump said, ‘Read the books! Read the manuals!’ Here is what they contain. - The Washington Post

Located in a secret alcove in the White House is a set of manuals. They explain in simple language and with illustrations every matter the president might encounter. Everyone knows about them, so that you can allude to them in conversation and people know what you are talking about: The Manuals, The Books. You might as well say “the Constitution” for how recognizable these are to the average listener. (Although the interviewer in this situation does not understand the reference, this is because he is from Australia; everyone in America knows about the presidential Manuals, Books.) But only the president has access to the wisdom they contain, which is why his decisions are always so opaque and baffling to all those around him. ....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/06/trump-said-read-books-read-manuals-here-is-what-they-contain/

Test positivity rate: How this one figure explains that the US isn't doing enough testing yet

The U.S. has performed more coronavirus tests than any other country in the world. Yet, at the same time, the U.S. is notably underperforming in terms of suppressing COVID-19. Confirmed cases – as well as deaths – are surging in many parts of the country. Some people have argued that the increase in cases is solely due to increased testing.

I am a statistician who studies how mathematics and statistics can be used to track diseases. The claim that the increase in cases is only caused by increases in testing is just not true. But how do public health officials know this? ....
https://theconversation.com/test-positivity-rate-how-this-one-figure-explains-that-the-us-isnt-doing-enough-testing-yet-143340

California Gov Was Reportedly Told He’d Have to Do the White House a Favor to Get Help With Testing Swabs

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was told by the White House at the height of the coronavirus pandemic that he’d have to personally appeal to and express gratitude to President Donald Trump if he wanted the federal government to help his state get swabs for COVID-19 testing, The New York Times reports. Sources cited by the Times say it was White House adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who voiced the apparent quid pro quo in April. ....
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gov-gavin-newsom-was-told-hed-have-to-do-the-white-house-a-favor-to-get-help-with-testing-swabs-nyt

Trump administration opposes new funds for testing, tracing and CDC in virus relief bill - The Washington Post

White House posture angers some GOP senators who are trying to include billions of dollars in the bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/18/white-house-testing-budget-cdc-coronavirus/

Republican Tells Citizens to 'Stop Getting Tested' for Coronavirus, Says We're Living in 'Dictatorship'

A day before Ohio Governor Mike DeWine's face mask order went into effect, GOP Representative Nino Vitale took to Facebook to tell people to "stop getting tested." DeWine's executive order, which goes into effect Wednesday at 6 p.m., extends across seven counties, flagged as Level Three Red for seeing spikes in positive coronavirus cases. On Tuesday, Vitale asked if people are "tired of living in a dictatorship yet?"
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-tells-citizens-stop-getting-tested-coronavirus-says-were-living-dictatorship-1516339