Name: ‘A great deal of confusion and uncertainty’: Trump coronavirus adviser infighting breaks into open
Brand: washingtonexaminer.com
SKU: washingtonexaminer-com-848
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

‘A great deal of confusion and uncertainty’: Trump coronavirus adviser infighting breaks into open

preview

hite House Coronavirus Task Force advisers are openly disagreeing with each other, sending mixed messages about the pandemic.Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in recent days have criticized Dr. Scott Atlas, a conservative neuroradiologist from Stanford who has become the top adviser to President Trump on the coronavirus."Everything he says is false," Redfield about Atlas during a phone call made in public on a commercial flight and by NBC News.Redfield’s comment came after Atlas him of “misstating” the facts about the coronavirus.Fauci, meanwhile, CNN’s Brian Stelter Monday that “most [members of the task force] are working together. I think you know who the outlier is,” referring to Atlas.Atlas spends “much more” time with Trump than any other health expert working in the White House, Fauci told Peter Staley, an HIV/AIDS activist, in an Instagram interview. When asked if he has ever been in a situation where the president’s closest adviser on an epidemic is not an expert in infectious diseases, Fauci said, “This is a unique situation.”Atlas joined the White House after pushing in media appearances to focus on reopening businesses and schools, a message more in line with Trump’s instincts than the public health-oriented guidance from Fauci and Redfield.Atlas has accused Fauci and Redfield of fearmongering and misleading the public about the severity of the pandemic. Atlas, who does not have a background in epidemiology, has been a at Trump’s White House briefings, while Fauci and task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx have not appeared with Trump in months.“Traditionally, there is a very well-established protocol for how to communicate around public health emergencies,” said Dr. Matthew Seeger, a crisis communications expert from Wayne State University. “That role has been taken over by the president himself, and that has created a great deal of confusion and uncertainty around this particular circumstance.”When Atlas joined the task force in August, he the Washington Examiner that he was not there “to replace anyone,” but rather, “I'm here to work with everyone.” He has since openly clashed with experts on the task force such as Fauci and Redfield.The infighting and muddled messaging from the White House will prolong the public health emergency, Seeger told the Washington Examiner. Inconsistencies allow people to interpret guidance the way that they want, creating “variabilities in behavior, which increase vulnerability.”“Consistent messages from subject matter experts are critical to effective communication around this, these issues, and effective response, and we have inconsistent messages,” Seeger said. “He is not a subject matter expert in this area and, therefore, does not have the kind of credibility that others have.”Coronavirus cases are by 10% or more compared with a week ago in 21 states.An analysis of Johns Hopkins data by CNN finds that cases are increasing in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington state, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In 11 states, cases are declining, and, in 18, they are holding steady.The current rate of increase suggests that a new wave may be forming."We really don’t know yet," Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director at the American Public Health Association, the Washington Examiner recently. "What we do know for sure is that we are going to have these peaks and episodic outbreaks."After months of low infection rates, New York reported Monday. For the first time since early June, more than 1,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus on a single day in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that "of the 99,553 tests reported [Friday], 1,005 were positive." He added that hospitalizations for the coronavirus stood at 527 and that four people died from complications with the virus.The Trump administration Monday that it will distribute 150 million rapid coronavirus tests around the United States as part of its efforts to get teachers and students back to schools, to reopen businesses, and to keep people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities from infecting others."In the old days when we just started this, you remember, we'd go out, and we'd have to find these massive laboratories with tremendously expensive equipment. Now, we're down to something that you'll see that is really from a different planet," Trump said.Fifty million tests will be allocated to the “most vulnerable communities” — nursing homes, long-term care facilities, hospice care providers, and historically black colleges and universities. The other 100 million will be allocated to states and territories.Russian President Vladimir Putin South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a phone call that he would take the COVID-19 vaccine developed in Russia before his visit to Seoul but did not specify when."I will come to South Korea ... I will personally take the Russian vaccine and go," Putin said, responding to Moon's invitation to visit his country.COVID-19 incidence among teenagers, those 12 to 17 years old, is about twice that for children aged 5 to11, the CDC said in a new analysis Monday. The analyzed 277,285 cases between March and September, when most children were not in school.

hite House Coronavirus Task Force advisers are openly disagreeing with each other, sending mixed messages about the pandemic.Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in recent days have criticized Dr. Scott Atlas, a conservative neuroradiologist from Stanford who has become the top adviser to President Trump on the coronavirus."Everything he says is false," Redfield about Atlas during a phone call made in public on a commercial flight and by NBC News.Redfield’s comment...

public

Cassidy Morrison

The Washington Examiner is an American conservative news website and weekly magazine based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz. From 2005 to mid-2013, the Examiner published a daily tabloid-sized newspaper, distributed throughout the Washington, D.C., metro area. The newspaper focused on local news and political commentary. The local newspaper ceased publication on June 14, 2013, whereupon its content began to focus almost exclusively on national politics, switching its print edition from a daily newspaper to a weekly magazine format.

‘A great deal of confusion and uncertainty’: Trump coronavirus adviser infighting breaks into open

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS