Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb criticized the CDC for its 'lack of rigor' in providing guidelines during the early days of COVID, pointing to the six-feet-apart social distancing rule to stop the spread as an 'arbitrary' approach proposed by a Trump appointee.
'The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself, nobody knows where it came from,' said Gottlieb in an interview with Margaret Brennan in CBS's segment Face The Nation.
'But if the administration had focused in on that, they might have been able to effect a policy that would have actually achieved their outcome. But that policy making process didn’t exist, and the six feet is a perfect example of sort of the lack of rigor around how CDC made recommendations.'
Gottlieb continued: 'The initial recommendation that the CDC brought to the White House and I talk about this was 10 feet, and a political appointee in the White House said we can't recommend 10 feet.
Gottlieb, a frequent critic of Trump's handling of the pandemic, did not disclose the name of the aide who allegedly proposed the six-feet rule.
'Nobody can measure 10 feet. It's inoperable. Society will shut down. So the compromise was around six feet,' Gottlieb said.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the six-feet-apart social distancing rule branded as one of the main measures to stop COVID-19 spread was 'arbitrary,'
'The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself, nobody knows where it came from,' said Gottlieb in an interview with Margaret Brennan in CBC's segment Face The Nation
In the interview, Gottlieb said that the guideline was changed to three feet this spring because of added pressure from the Biden administration to open back schools across the country, which was only going to be possible if the six-feet measure was reduced.
In March, the CDC recommended that all students should remain at least three feet apart in classrooms.
The CDC cited the reason behind the impromptu change was a study that proved three-feet social distancing between two masked individuals reduced the chances of COVID-19 infections by 70 percent.
However, Gottlieb contended that the study had been done in the fall of 2020, and the CDC waited until the spring to change the guideline.
'Which begs the question if they had that study result in the fall, why didn't they change the advice in the fall? Why did they wait until the spring?
'This is how the whole thing feels arbitrary and not science-based. So we talk about a very careful, science-based process and these anecdotes get exposed, and that's where Americans start to lose confidence in how the decisions got made,' Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb weighed in on his perceived treatment of the pandemic by the Trump administration.
The former commissioner was critical of Trump's inaction and lack of compromise with sending a unified message at a time of crisis, and setting an example in dealing with the pandemic as COVID-19 took the lives of hundreds of thousands Americans.
Gottlieb said that the guideline was changed to three feet this spring because of added pressure from the Biden administration to open back schools across the country, which was only going to be possible if the six-feet measure was reduced
'Later on, their attitudes really changed to the point where when the president was contagious with COVID, he ceremoniously took his mask off. And so what message does that send to the country?' said Gottlieb about Trump
He added that while Trump was initially determined to make dramatic decisions in order to stop the spread, he eventually became more concerned with how the pandemic was going to affect America in other ways.
'Later on, their attitudes really changed to the point where when the president was contagious with COVID, he ceremoniously took his mask off. And so what message does that send to the country?
'But my view is that they were sold on the idea that you weren't going to be able to really affect the spread and that anything you did was just going to have so many repercussions in terms of impact on children who might not be in school.
'Impact on the economy, that the costs were worse than the disease. And the schools is a perfect example of the lack of effective policymaking, he said.'
Gottlieb said that there were inherent issues that kept the country from proactively stopping the spread and minimizing the consequences of the pandemic, adding that Trump was privately 'gravely concerned' but did not want to alarm the public.
'But stepping back from that, I think that there were fundamental weaknesses with our response that regardless of who is in power, we had an ill prepared bureaucracy. We didn't have the right infrastructure, we didn't have the right agencies.
'The agencies weren't properly empowered. So even if you had competent leadership, very effective leadership up and down the chain, you still would have had some of the same problems,' Gottlieb concluded.
'Later on, their attitudes really changed to the point where when the president was contagious with COVID, he ceremoniously took his mask off. And so what message does that send to the country?' Gottlieb said. Pictured is Trump taking his mask off while infected with COVID-19 upon returning to the White House after hospital treatment
Gottlieb was critical of Trump's inaction and lack of compromise with sending an unified message to Americans at a time of crisis. Pictured is Trump returning to the White House, driven the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19
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