Pritzker, Ezike say Trump politicizing pandemic

‘He’s acted irrationally all along,’ says guv, as doc frets about CDC data

The governor and the state’s top public health official charged President Trump with trying to distract voters from the pandemic and perhaps alter the data from hospitals to his benefit. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

The governor and the state’s top health official charged President Trump with “politicizing every aspect of this pandemic” Wednesday, while worrying about the White House decision this week to remove the top federal medical agency from compiling data on COVID-19.

Gov. Pritzker repeatedly called the president “irrational” when asked about Trump’s recent behavior at the end of a coronavirus briefing held at the Thompson Center in Chicago. But what really drew his ire was a question about the Trump administration’s decision this week calling on hospitals to submit their coronavirus data directly to a third-party compilation service for the Department of Health and Human Services, and not to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The president has tried to politicize every aspect of this pandemic,” Pritzker said. “This should not be political. This is about saving lives. The CDC is something that public health departments all across the nation rely upon. They’re a trusted source of information, advice help, and to go politicize it by interrupting the flow of data — what is the purpose of interrupting the flow of the data to the CDC, where the data really belong, where the experts really are? It can only be political. And that really concerns me greatly.”

Fears are that the Trump administration — which has seen whatever credibility it once had trashed by its own abject mishandling of the pandemic on a federal level — might start to do all it can to hide adverse findings and cook the books on outbreaks the U.S. public really needs to be warned about, such as the current rise in cases across the Sun Belt states from Florida through Texas to California.

“I’m focused on the health and safety of our people in Illinois,” Pritzker said. “I want to get the best advice that we can get. … CDC is one of those places you want to rely upon. Then when you see a president politicizing, interrupting data, intervening, it gives one pause.”

“CDC is our foundational public-health entity, not just in this country, but serves as a leader throughout the world,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Department of Public Health. Saying that she is regularly in contact with top CDC officials, including Director Robert Redfield, and that the state had benefitted from repeated visits from CDC officials during the pandemic, she added, “I would be very concerned and fearful to move into a new situation where the CDC does not have that ability to intervene and support the states as it has been. We also want to make sure that we have data that we can trust and that we can use to make sound decisions going forward.

“We’ve had a great relationship with the CDC, our trusted source and our public-health authority,” Ezike added, “and we hope to continue to continue to be able to work with CDC in that manner.”

The governor was also asked about Trump’s declaration Wednesday that he’d soon be making an announcement on how his administration will deal with rampant gun violence in Chicago and other Democratic cities. Pritzker called it “a sign of desperation by the president to improve his standing somehow by making these declarations.” He added that “if he really wants to help” Trump can fund federal violence-prevention programs and mental-health initiatives, adding, “We would love to get that kind of help.”

Pritzker cited Trump’s recent move to deploy the National Guard against peaceful protesters in the nation’s capital as an “irrational” act, adding, “He’s acted irrationally all along. … I fear that the president is really thinking about other things and not what really would help.”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has previously dismissed Trump’s repeated attacks on Chicago’s violence problem as purely political grandstanding, at one point saying, “President Trump knows as much about policing as he does running a fair and transparent government.”