As Trump clamps down on coronavirus communications, voices of experts give way to those of politicians
President Donald Trump’s oscillations over the fate of his coronavirus task force have tapped into a growing fear within the nation’s public health community: That at a critical juncture in the pandemic fight, the government’s top health experts might still be seen, but increasingly not heard.
The Trump administration in recent weeks has clamped down on messaging, largely shifting its focus to cheerleading a restart of the nation’s economy even as states and businesses clamor for guidance on how to do so safely.
Key health agencies remain relegated to the background. Some congressional requests for health officials’ testimony are being rejected. And though the task force is still intact, it has not held a press briefing for 13 days — the longest the public has gone without having Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx at the White House podium since the briefings began in late February.
“It’s a blind spot that the federal government doesn’t see this first and foremost as a public health crisis,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University. “This is the public health crisis of the century, and we’re sometimes treating it as anything but.”
The broader turn away from the health issues at the core of such an all-encompassing national emergency is just the latest chapter in a communications strategy that’s long confounded and frustrated public health experts.
It took weeks for Trump to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, costing the U.S. valuable time in standing up a comprehensive response and limiting the virus’ spread. Now, as the administration’s efforts are beginning to show signs of bending the infection curve, it’s leaving states in charge of balancing a reopening of their crippled economies against the threat that doing so could spur a wave of new outbreaks.
The resulting patchwork of public health planning has confused businesses and worried Americans who have little sense of what the next several months will look like — and who polls show are broadly anxious about emerging from their homes. [Continue reading…]