‘CDC Leadership Never Cleared’ — White House Task Force Rejects AP Report On Shelved Reopening Guidance

Officials on the White House coronavirus task force and senior Trump administration officials are pushing back on an Associated Press article published Thursday accusing the White House of shelving new reopening guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC).

Officials told the Daily Caller that the guidelines in question, a 17-page document, were not cleared for public dissemination by CDC leadership, but are still being provided to states requesting assistance in reopening.

The AP’s story, titled “Admin shelves CDC guide to reopening country,” did concede that states had access to the guidelines in the final two paragraphs, in addition to a quote suggesting the same from Marcus Plescia, the Chief Medical Officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

“I don’t think that any state feels that the CDC is deficient,” Plescia stated. “It’s just the process of getting stuff out.”

A White House task force official, speaking anonymously as they had not been cleared to publicly address the issue, told the Daily Caller that the guidelines were not officially approved because of the varying degrees of severity for how the pandemic is impacting both different industries and different states.