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Trump coronavirus effort undermined by mixed messages and falsehoods
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-effort-undermined-by-mixed-messages-and-falsehoods/2020/03/03/d744c406-5d75-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html
By Philip Rucker, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Ashley Parker
March 3, 2020 at 7:58 p.m. EST
When Anthony Fauci, clad in a white lab coat, invited an “NBC Nightly News” correspondent into his offices this week and described the coronavirus as an “outbreak” that was reaching “likely pandemic proportions,” the immunologist was acting as he long has during public health crises: delivering a fact-based warning to the public.
But at the White House, the more politically minded officials overseeing the administration’s response were irritated that Fauci — the veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — had used the word “pandemic” without giving anyone on Vice President Pence’s staff a heads-up, according to two people familiar with the situation.
One week after Trump returned home from India to confront an unfolding health crisis and tasked Pence with managing the government-wide response, the effort has been undermined by mixed messages, contradictions and falsehoods — many of them emanating from the president himself, including this week when he repeatedly spread false information about just how soon a coronavirus vaccine would be available.
The White House is handling the rapidly expanding coronavirus as a public relations problem as much as a public health crisis. Officials are insisting on message discipline among government scientists and political aides alike, part of what they say is a responsible effort to try to calm jittery Americans and provide uniform and transparent information.
</snip>
By Philip Rucker, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Ashley Parker
March 3, 2020 at 7:58 p.m. EST
When Anthony Fauci, clad in a white lab coat, invited an “NBC Nightly News” correspondent into his offices this week and described the coronavirus as an “outbreak” that was reaching “likely pandemic proportions,” the immunologist was acting as he long has during public health crises: delivering a fact-based warning to the public.
But at the White House, the more politically minded officials overseeing the administration’s response were irritated that Fauci — the veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — had used the word “pandemic” without giving anyone on Vice President Pence’s staff a heads-up, according to two people familiar with the situation.
One week after Trump returned home from India to confront an unfolding health crisis and tasked Pence with managing the government-wide response, the effort has been undermined by mixed messages, contradictions and falsehoods — many of them emanating from the president himself, including this week when he repeatedly spread false information about just how soon a coronavirus vaccine would be available.
The White House is handling the rapidly expanding coronavirus as a public relations problem as much as a public health crisis. Officials are insisting on message discipline among government scientists and political aides alike, part of what they say is a responsible effort to try to calm jittery Americans and provide uniform and transparent information.
</snip>
I hope the virus claims only one more victim - his re-election chances.
4 replies
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