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I read the article, and agree with this summary fwiw. I would also emphasize that, in terms of personal culpability, Secretary Alex Azar of the Department of H
by gen220 6y ago
I read the article, and agree with this summary fwiw.
I would also emphasize that, in terms of personal culpability, Secretary Alex Azar of the Department of Health and Human Services comes out looking very poor. (Mnuchin was also the speaker of some, in retrospect, appalling secondhand quotes).
The article points out that Azar is the director of both the FDA and the CDC, and should have played a more active role in orchestrating their handshakes in February.
Misunderstanding and miscommunication between the FDA and CDC were responsible for the absurd delay in widely-available testing, which otherwise should have been available in med-February.
Not only was he aware of problems early on, he didn't properly communicate them up (to Trump, which contributed to Trump's belief that the whole thing would blow over), or manage them down.
This is my reading, as a disclaimer, not an explicit statement from the article. I recommend people read it for themselves.
- jacobolus 6y agoI haven't read this article yet, but my impression has been that every political official in the Trump Administration – Azar, Redfield, Hahn, Pence, Mnunchin, Pompeo, Kushner, Birx, Adams, Atlas, Barr, Kudlow, ... – has egg all over their face in this crisis. A whole crew of sycophants afraid for their jobs, falling over themselves to keep Trump happy. Fauci and (sidelined and silenced) career officials at the CDC, FDA, and NIH are the only ones who came out looking okay.
- dan-robertson 6y agoMost of the trump appointees and trump himself come out of the article looking bad. Fauci comes out okay but not fantastic, with Birx looking a little better. About the only senior figure who seems to look good coming out of the article is Pottinger, who came into the government attached to Flynn.
- gen220 6y agoI trust the New Yorker’s fact-checking chops, but I think it’s wise to be skeptical about Pottinger, as he’s the primary source for the story. I believe he advocated for a stronger response, and was summarily dismissed by his colleagues as there’s plenty of evidence for that. But I don’t know how accurate his portrayals of the intentions behind the CDC and the FDA officials are. There aren’t a lot of ways to cross reference his analysis of the quoted meetings, since the CDC and FDA both declined to comment for the piece. This is as close to a “full story” as we’re going to get before a hypothetical “COVID commission” congressional investigation, but it’s still quite two dimensional.