“Former staffers at the agency, at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the other agencies under its umbrella, also described a culture focused on avoiding politics — one that has left the agency unprepared for the political pressure of handling the coronavirus response, or for Trump’s onslaught of criticism and pushback.” Stat: The CDC has always been an apolitical island. That’s left it defenseless against Trump.

+ Of course, the CDC shouldn’t need to defend itself from the president. WaPo: “We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has.”