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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned.
The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in Chinas disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.
It was heartbreaking to watch, said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.
Zhu and the other sources said the American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases. As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the growing threat weeks earlier.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv-idUSKBN21910S
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(37,157 posts)We go there as credentialed diplomats and return home as close colleagues and often as friends, Conway said.
In 2007, Dr. Robert Fontaine, a CDC epidemiologist and one of the longest serving U.S. officials in the advisers position, received Chinas highest honor for outstanding contributions to public health due to his contribution as a foreigner in helping to detect and investigate clusters of pneumonia of unknown cause.
But since last year, Frieden and others said, growing tensions between the Trump administration and Chinas leadership have apparently damaged the collaboration.
The message from the administration was, Dont work with China, theyre our rival, Frieden said.