[2006alum]

More on how the CDC is being overruled by the White House:

The White House is pushing a return to its failed experiment in relying on temperature screening of air travelers to detect coronavirus despite vehement objections from the nation's top public health agency, internal documents obtained by USA TODAY show.

The discord underscores the administration’s disregard for science and the diminished standing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a moment when local governments, businesses and community leaders are seeking direction on how to reopen safely. Recent emails show CDC scientists, who have begun owning up to initial missteps in the federal response, trying to persuade the administration to reconsider.  

The White House directive to check travelers in 20 U.S. airports for fever comes after earlier efforts by the CDC to screen travelers returning from China failed to stop the global pandemic from reaching the United States.  

“Thermal scanning as proposed is a poorly designed control and detection strategy as we have learned very clearly,”  Dr. Martin  Cetron, the CDC’s director of global mitigation and quarantine, wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security officials on Thursday. “We should be concentrating our CDC resources where there is impact and a probability of mission success.”  Cetron questioned his agency’s legal authority to execute the airport plan, ending the email: “Please kindly strike out CDC from this role.”  

[2006alum]

More on how the CDC is being overruled by the White House:

The White House is pushing a return to its failed experiment in relying on temperature screening of air travelers to detect coronavirus despite vehement objections from the nation's top public health agency, internal documents obtained by USA TODAY show.

The discord underscores the administration’s disregard for science and the diminished standing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a moment when local governments, businesses and community leaders are seeking direction on how to reopen safely. Recent emails show CDC scientists, who have begun owning up to initial missteps in the federal response, trying to persuade the administration to reconsider.  

The White House directive to check travelers in 20 U.S. airports for fever comes after earlier efforts by the CDC to screen travelers returning from China failed to stop the global pandemic from reaching the United States.  

“Thermal scanning as proposed is a poorly designed control and detection strategy as we have learned very clearly,”  Dr. Martin  Cetron, the CDC’s director of global mitigation and quarantine, wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security officials on Thursday. “We should be concentrating our CDC resources where there is impact and a probability of mission success.”  Cetron questioned his agency’s legal authority to execute the airport plan, ending the email: “Please kindly strike out CDC from this role.”