Former FDA commissioner says CDC should deliver more info on 'collective clinical experience' of coronavirus patients

White House economic adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "really let" the United States down when it came to coronavirus testing early on during the epidemic.

In response to a question from NBC's Chuck Todd about whether President Trump trusts the CDC to take the lead on the coronavirus pandemic going forward, Navarro said the agency "set us back" by keeping the "bad" test "within the bureaucracy," though he didn't say its guidelines should be dismissed as time progresses. Instead, Navarro shifted gears a little to highlight what he considers the dangers of a continued lockdown.

Others, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, disagreed with Navarro's perception of how the CDC managed testing. Gottlieb said even if the CDC had rolled out the tests perfectly, there wouldn't have been enough available to get a true sense of the pandemic's scope. He did, however, say the agency needs to deliver more information about the "collective clinical experience" of coronavirus patients and their outcomes across the country. As things stand, he said, "we're learning a lot of this by word of mouth." Tim O'Donnell

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