Flawed U.S. response to COVID-19 described

WA SHINGTON •A n ew whistleblower complaint has drawn attention for its allegations that the Trump administration retaliated against a scientist who sent early coronavirus warnings. The case also provides an insider account of the dysfunction critics say paralyzed the Department of Health and Human Services at the dawn of the COVID-19 response.

The complaint by Dr. Rick Bright, who headed a federal agency called the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, until April 20, says HHS Secretary Alex Azar and his top aides dismissed experts’ warnings about the impending epidemic, failed to implement vital procedures and got sidetracked with political backbiting.

Bright’s complaint, filed Tuesday, was the subject of media reports for its description of the administration’s scramble to make malaria drugs available at President Donald Trump’s behest. However, the complaint also offers fresh details. They show how tensions between public health agencies likely delayed a more aggressive early government response.

When Bright pushed top management in late January to move aggressively, the complaint said, HHS leaders “responded with surprise at Dr. Bright’s dire predictions and urgency, and asserted that the United States would be able to contain the virus and keep it out of the United States.”

As Reuters reported last month, Azar in Januar y tapped a 37- year- old political appointee with minimal public health or administrative experience to co- ordinate the agency’s day- to- day response to COVID-19. For six years before joining the Trump Administration, the aide, Brian Harrison, had been a professional labradoodle breeder.

The complaint asserts Harrison and deputy chief of staff Judy Stecker blocked Bright, the government’s top vaccine expert, from key HHS meetings in January. “The decision to eliminate BARDA was made by Brian Harrison, Secretary Azar’s Chief of Staff, and Ms. Stecker,” the complaint said.

BARDA and Stecker referred calls to HHS, which declined comment. Bright declined to comment. HHS declined to arrange interviews with Azar and Harrison.