For a president who frequently opines on whatever is grabbing headlines — from natural disasters to sports championships and celebrity news — Trump has so far been restrained in his comments on the coronavirus, not making himself the face of the battle against an international health crisis beyond his control.
By comparison, Trump has been very outspoken on the opioid crisis, and had the power to focus attention and move more resources, while the coronavirus is far more unpredictable, and there are scientific factors impossible to predict as the epidemic evolves. The outbreak has killed more than 130 and sickened thousands, mostly in China.
“We learned a lesson from the swine flu in ‘76: The president made the announcement and ended up owning the problem,” said Tom Frieden, who headed the CDC during the Obama administration, referring to an outbreak during former President Gerald Ford’s tenure. “It wasn’t his fault. … I’d rather not see it politicized.”
So far, the administration has rolled out a show of its public health expertise, including HHS Secretary Alex Azar — a veteran of the SARS outbreak and anthrax attacks while he served in the George W. Bush administration — and Anthony Fauci, the NIH official who’s helped steer federal responses to health crises since the Reagan years.
“The president and I have been speaking regularly about this outbreak, and I have been speaking with the senior officials at HHS and the White House multiple times each day since the outbreak began to represent an international threat,” Azar said. “The president is highly engaged in this response, and closely monitoring the work we’re doing to keep Americans safe.”
It’s a marked difference from the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, when Trump blasted former President Barack Obama for not imposing strict travel restrictions.
The lower-profile approach he’s shown to date could keep paying dividends if confirmed cases continue to climb, as authorities expect.
The outbreak already is providing an early test of a plan Trump unveiled in 2018 to respond to man-made and naturally occurring biological threats that designated HHS the lead federal department on viral pandemics, effectively wrangling up to a dozen agencies’ response.
There’s been skepticism in the public health community about how the plan would work. “As a practical matter, HHS is not going to coordinate the Pentagon,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked at USAID on the Obama administration’s response during the Ebola outbreak that killed thousands. “There are a lot of different parts of the government that need to all start pulling in the same direction if we need a complex, coherent response to something like this.”
The military and HHS collaborated with the State Dept. on evacuating 195 American citizens from China and housing them at an Air Force base in California on Wednesday. But CDC officials declined to call three days of monitoring the group a quarantine. “They can leave; however, they are sitting in the middle of a military base. Any discussion around departure would be just that — a discussion,” said Rear Adm. Nancy Knight, director of CDC’s Global Health Protection Division.
Administration critics also have been quick to criticize a 2018 White House decision to gut a National Security Council team focused on responding to pandemics as part of a streamlining, though the NSC continues to play a major role in coordinating the federal response to global crises. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Monday called on the president to immediately correct that action, and 30 Democratic senators chided Trump in a letter that “outbreaks like this serve as a solemn reminder of the need for an unwavering commitment to global health security and the need for strong public health programs worldwide.”
Meanwhile, some administration allies in Congress are breaking with the conciliatory tone toward China and sounding the way Trump did during the Ebola crisis on matters like travel bans.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Tuesday urged the United States to ban commercial travel from China, evacuate Americans and explore restricting trade, adding that the outbreak was attributable to “the deadly combination of Chinese duplicity and incompetence.” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has also written to Trump questioning whether the United States should institute travel bans to ward off potential new cases.
Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), who sponsored a bill that reauthorized HHS’ pandemic response last year, said she’s taking a more wait-and-see approach, and will decide after a Thursday briefing for House Energy and Commerce members from CDC Director Robert Redfield and Fauci before backing what she called a “severe” step like travel restrictions.
„You’ve got to believe in your health professionals, and you’ve got to keep your calm,“ said Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), an occasional Trump critic.
Public health experts say the administration’s response to date has been largely seamless. The CDC has been leading the efforts, holding routine briefings with state officials and the media to discuss the latest developments, as well as unknowns like how contagious the virus is. “We feel confident we’re getting the intelligence we need,“ said Mike Fraser, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
The CDC is tapping its Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund for technical assistance, planning at ports of entry and other needs, said an HHS spokesperson, and it will submit a spending plan to Congress.
But states concerned about responding to coronavirus cases amid an already busy flu season are pressing Azar to declare a public health emergency, which would allow them to tap into extra funds and allow CDC to send epidemiologists into the field. Azar on Tuesday said the five confirmed cases of Wuhan virus in the United States didn’t warrant such a declaration — and reiterated that expertise would inform future decisions.
“This is a public health matter, not a political matter in any way,” Azar said.
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
See more here: news365.stream
