(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The politician needs to get inoculated for stepping on rakes.

Throughout the weekend and over the following days, the administration has been working on getting messaging out and providing data concerning the spread of the Wuhan virus. Just as diligently, the press and the Democrats have been working on exploding panic over the viral crisis to impact President Trump. Jonathon Chait is but one example of those in the media shaking pom-poms to provoke hysteria.

On the Sunday news shows, the Surgeon General, Jerome M. Adams, did his best to lend perspective to the crisis, explaining how the rates of infection were low, and that of those who have had fatal reactions the average age is over 80 years old. But the left needs to weaponize this crisis, and that is where Representative Ted Lieu stepped in…and promptly was met in the face with a rake handle.

Lieu thought he had found a salient point to land a crushing blow on the administration and, by extension, the President. He challenged the Surgeon General on a point about the availability of tests for the virus.

Dear @Surgeon_General Adams: You told @jaketapper today that last week, you weren’t aware of any doctor asking for a #coronavirus test that couldn’t get it. ER doc in this article had patient with symptoms & was denied test. Do you want to clarify?https://t.co/XpJJzA18VM

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 8, 2020

It was rather helpful of Ted to provide a link to the news item to support his point. What would have been more helpful? Had Ted Lieu actually read the article he linked to in his post. In the L.A. Times piece he provided, we are shown how an emergency room doctor had requested a test for Covid-19 but had been declined. ‘’Last night I had a patient with clear coronavirus symptoms, but the health department didn’t think he should be tested,’’ said the physician.

Since Ted Lieu asked for clarification, this means he was blocked from getting the test. That is, there was a test available, but he had been turned down. It was not an instance that ‘’he couldn’t get it’’, he was prevented from getting the available test, a decision made by local California authorities.

Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday lifted some guidelines so anyone with symptoms can be tested by their physician, L.A. officials did not immediately adopt that criteria because of a backlog at the local health lab and continued to limit tests to hospitalized patients.

Thus, in his attempt to color the administration as failing to provide needed tests he instead showed how local health officials were mired in bureaucratic stasis. It was the local California authorities who denied the available testing, possibly contributing to the spreading of the virus. Ted Lieu’s rush to judgment here underscores what we have been treated to the past few weeks.

All while insisting this is a public health crisis, the Democrats and the media are in a fevered rush to cast blame, provide worst-case scenarios, and accuse Trump and the administration of sloth and misguidance. The effort being made is not to inform and provide needed details, it is to create panic and provoke adverse effects, all so Trump can be smeared. Instead of public service, it is serving self-interests.