Fauci says he was having surgery when CDC testing changes were made
26 August 2020
Anthony Fauci was in the operating room under general anesthesia last Thursday when the White House coronavirus task force approved the narrowing of CDC testing recommendations to exclude asymptomatic individuals, according to CNN's Sanjay Gupta.
Why it matters: Fauci, who had vocal cord surgery last week, told Gupta that he is "concerned about the interpretations of these recommendations. I'm worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is."
The state of play: The Trump administration's testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir denied reports on Wednesday that top White House officials ordered the CDC to stop recommending testing for asymptomatics who have been exposed to the virus, insisting that the guidelines came from within the agency.
- “The new guidelines are a CDC action,” Giroir said. "As always, the guidelines received appropriate attention, consultation and input from task force experts, and I mean the medical and scientific experts, including CDC Director Redfield."
- Giroir said that Fauci was among the health experts that worked on the guidance, which was updated on Monday with no public notice.
Between the lines: Experts have said it's important to identify infections before coronavirus symptoms kick in because it's when many individuals are believed to be the most contagious, The New York Times reports.
- Some models suggest nearly half of transmission events can be traced back to when individuals were still pre-symptomatic.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.