[ED NOTE: Some months ago, bewildered by the amount of oncoming data and information - and its misapplications - I started putting together a coronavirus database. That can be found here. Much of the information in this piece is taken from there.]
POSTMORTEM: Too Early?
Part V: Breakdown of Trust
by Domingo Soto
As the conflicting interests between the economy versus public safety played out, now daily, the President was less an arbiter and more a provocateur, his thumb on the scale favoring the economy as the cure-all panacea. An intentional saboteur would not have been more pleased with the damage done - in the end, to the process - but as it played out, also to the players, the national and global institutions, and the country’s ability to short circuit the pandemic.
Health Professionals
It’s the ones on the front lines that take the first hits, here it was the healthcare experts. Not one for subtleties, the President, even though the Vice President was at its head, subsumed the task force’s managerial role via daily television briefings. There were immediate stress lines and, eventually, a fracture with a bully not merely at odds with the medical knowledge, but in battle with its purveyors.
There is perhaps no better metaphor for what might seem like a David versus Goliath struggle than Dr. Fauci, not just in physical size, but in temperament, ego, style, intellect, and professionalism. He would come to gain the nation’s confidence as the point man for the task force, often adding “nuance” to the President’s analysis.
What was obvious in the back-and-forth of what would become a daily made-for-television political soap opera was Trump’s insistence that it was his way or the highway, science be damned. Fauci was but just one of the pieces in his reality show. Others on the task force attempted to walk the tightrope of fulfilling their ethical duties, avoiding Trump’s political machinations, and trying to effectively face what would become the President’s political backfires.
In mid-April, Trump would rebuff Fauci’s concern that the country was lagging in its coronavirus testing, saying publicly, “I don’t agree with him.” The day before, the President contradicted CDC Director Robert Redfield’s comments of a second wave, saying “It may not come back at all” and later claiming that Redfield had been "totally misquoted". To his comment that "You may not even have corona coming back," Fauci would respond that "We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that because of the degree of... transmissibility that it has, the global nature." The honeymoon was just about over.
At the end of April, it was announced, contrary to what the medical experts suggested, that the federal guidelines on social distancing would not be renewed. Concerned, Congress sought Fauci’s testimony. On May Day the White House blocked him from testifying before a House panel. Much more happened that day: a watchdog who identified critical medical shortages was replaced; NIH abruptly cut coronavirus research funding for a Chinese bat study; and the Administration rejected CDC reopening guidelines as "overly prescriptive" and later that week, task force members were barred from accepting invitations to appear before congressional panels without White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’.
The daily televised briefings ended on May 4. The following day the White House announced that it was considering winding down the task force, the Vice President saying that it was "a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country. We are bringing our country back." Facing clap back, Trump soon reversed himself, saying the task force would continue “indefinitely”. The task force lay essentially dormant until mid-August when Dr. Scott Atlas was named the new head of the task force. Putsch accomplished.
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