Public health experts say that among the keys to returning to normalcy are nationwide virus testing (to determine who has the virus); serological testing (to allow those who have been exposed to the virus and developed immunity to return to work); and contact tracing (quickly tracking all the contacts of an infected individual, to halt further spread). Two task force officials said that more important even than nationwide testing is surveillance — using data to make informed decisions about public health.
But the administration has not fully grappled with the sheer manpower and resources required for an effort like contact tracing — and right now, there are not even enough coronavirus tests for those who need them, let alone the entire country.
Jack Chow, a former U.S. ambassador for global HIV/AIDS during the George W. Bush administration and former World Health Organization assistant director-general, said the problem is that the administration has yet to decide what the national recovery should look like.
“The whole response has been lagging the curve of the epidemic, and what ought to be happening is the designation of key strategic goals, key accomplishments that can happen within a specified timeline,” Chow said. “It sounds like they’re groping for that. There isn’t any clear direction as to what the strategic goals are in each different line of effort, and what the prospective timeline could be given the assets they have to deploy.”
This portrait of the White House three months into the coronavirus crisis is the result of interviews with 22 senior administration officials, lawmakers, public health officials and other Republicans in frequent touch with the White House, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
One of the biggest obstacles to the virus response is Trump himself. Even the most dutiful plans and projects often get caught up in the chaos of this White House. Advisers spend significant time trying to manage the president and his whims — from successfully dissuading him from seeking to reopen the country at Easter to tempering his impulse to push unproven drugs as miracle elixirs.
“Everything they’re doing is responding to something that’s already happened,” said the official, who stays in touch with administration officials. “Coordination from this White House has never been a particular strong suit.”
The Situation Room seating chart — sent out every morning by Short in a PowerPoint — has become one of the task force’s hottest documents.
Aides parse the power map for signs of who is up, who is down, and who is likely to speak during the news conference that evening, with those closest to Pence having the best odds. Birx is almost always on Pence’s right while other, less senior aides are along the back wall or in an overflow room.
One senior administration official described it as a “little reality show drama. Every day we wait for the email. It’s like ‘Game of Thrones.’ ”
Administration officials say the virus response has improved under Pence. The meetings are more organized and the vice president’s press team is responsive. Pence also engenders goodwill from many of his colleagues, unlike Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services secretary whose previous role in leading the meetings had caused discord, administration officials say.
During one task force meeting in the Situation Room last month, Trump turned to Fauci and challenged him.
It was the day the administration was adding Ireland and the United Kingdom to its travel restrictions, and Trump wanted to understand why talk of “herd immunity” — allowing the coronavirus to sweep a nation largely unchecked, with the belief that those who survived would then be immune — was such a bad idea.
“Why don’t we let this wash over the country?” Trump asked, according to two people familiar with his comments, a question other administration officials say he has raised repeatedly in the Oval Office.
Fauci initially seemed confused by the term “wash over” but became alarmed once he understood what Trump was asking.
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