“Trump appointees in the Health and Human Services department last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with then-President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators. The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year’s explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat the virus, a cadre of Trump appointees were attempting to blunt the scientists’ messages, edit their findings and equip the president with an alternate set of talking points” the Washington Post.

“Then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to then-HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, 2020, touting two examples of where he said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had bowed to his pressure and changed language in their reports, according to an email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak. Pointing to one change – where CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence of a report about spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them – Alexander wrote to Caputo, calling it a ‘small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!’ In the same email, Alexander touted another example of a change to a weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that he said the agency made in response to his demands. The weekly Morbidity and Mortality Reports, which offer public updates on scientists’ findings, had been considered sacrosanct for decades and untouchable by political appointees in the past. Two days later, Alexander appealed to then-White House adviser Scott Atlas to help him dispute an upcoming CDC report on coronavirus-related deaths among young Americans.”