Trump offers help. Is it too late?
President announces sweeping plan to improve testing
Dramatic steps have been taken in the past week to help reduce the scope of a nationwide coronavirus epidemic.
But they’ve been almost all bottom-up, enacted by individuals, schools, churches, companies, community groups, cities and counties across America.
On Friday, the White House promised help from the top, declaring a national emergency and $50 billion in funding to boost testing, waive red tape, provide assistance to the vulnerable and unlock additional resources for states such as California that are on the front lines of this crisis. Is it too little, too late? “It’s a positive step. What the president did was important,” said virologist Dr. Warner Greene, senior investigator with UC San Francisco’s Gladstone Institute.
But as the opportunity to slow
the virus narrows with each passing day, “I wish it had much happened earlier — 10 days, two weeks ago,” he said.
“Now is the time for everyone to cooperate and coordinate and get this done,” he added.
In recent days, countries such as South Korea, Singapore and China are demonstrating the ability to stem the tide of growing deaths, according to Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of emerging diseases at the World Health Organization.
It’s a stunning turnaround. By adopting the fundamentals of public health measures — social distancing, hand hygiene, isolation and contact tracing — their cases are dropping.
Until this week, President Donald Trump had downplayed the virus’s severity. News conferences have been big on style and short on substance, fanning confusion and alarming investors. He sought to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overruled his own health officials, and his administration botched early and widespread testing.
In this absence of federal leadership, others “have taken the ball and are trying as best as they can to delay a situation that is emerging in their communities,” said Greene.
As individuals, we’re washing hands, stocking up on sanitizer and canceling cherished plans with friends and family. Churches and sporting competitions are going virtual. Companies are mandating telework. Cities and counties are closing schools and outlawing large gatherings.
On Thursday, California
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a sweeping executive order that allows the state to take over hotels and medical facilities to treat coronavirus patients.
On Friday, the president offered a new message. He said his administration would work with privatesector companies to “vastly increase and accelerate” the availability and production of coronavirus test kits by fast-tracking FDA approval. Aside from saying that 1.4 million tests would be “on board” next week, the specifics were not described.
California’s rush to detect new cases of COVID-19 has been slowed by shortages of a key chemical needed to conduct the diagnostic tests, Newsom said Thursday.
And because of this shortage, the federal government has restrictions on who gets tested, even as the cases and deaths mount. Trump’s declaration did not address that, instead focusing on private partnerships that will make it much easier for those who need tests to get one.
His declaration allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to direct hospitals to activate emergency-preparedness contingency plans. It eases rules that govern “critical care” hospitals so they’re no longer limited to a 25-bed capacity.
He said his administration is working with Google to quickly launch a website that will help Americans determine whether they have symptoms of COVID-19 and whether they need testing and give them directions where they can go. But CNN later reported that Google said a different subsidiary of its parent company, Alphabet, is handling that and it would initially be on a smaller scale for California only, sometime next week.
The emergency declaration means the administration can mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which could send states more resources than they’ve received so far.
“It will meaningfully improve readiness,” tweeted former Food and Drug Administrator chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who has been a critic of the Trump administration’s effort.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, whose state has been hard hit by the virus, said, “I am hopeful the president’s actions today will provide the assistance I asked for.”
Newsom did not release a statement following the news.
The federal declaration has lots of “shiny new technical fixes,” such as the Google website, drivethrough testing and promises to boost private investment in drug and vaccine research, said Shannon Bennett, the California Academy of Sciences chief of Science, a virologist who studies infectious disease.
Moreover, it’s missing support for the costs of “social distancing,” such as paid sick leave, unemployment insurance and other measures, she said. And it doesn’t fix specific problems, like broadening the criteria for testing, so more people are eligible. Too many people go to their doctors with symptoms, she said, but are turned away.
The “social distancing” — which is critical to slowing the spread of the virus — creates hardships on towns, small businesses, hourly wage earners and many others. Paychecks are lost. Community services are disrupted.
Without this support, people won’t be able to sustain it, she worried.
“We need the infrastructure and guidance on how to implement these things,” she said. “Now it’s falling on all the states. There’s no federal support.”
The federal government could offer leadership by offering a common set of principals and criteria for closing schools, businesses and transit, then assessing the impact, she said.
“If we want to stop this virus,” she said, “it requires continued top down — as well as bottom up — support.”