Experts warn of vaccine stumbles because of Trump officials’ refusal to consult with Biden’s team

WASHINGTON » The last time a presidential transition began during a national emergency - in 2008, amid the Great Recession the outgoing Bush administration set aside partisanship to work closely with incoming Obama officials about how to deal with the economic collapse.

“Everyone was completely responsive to any question,” said Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. “They talked to us about major decisions.”

That smooth handoff is in stark contrast to what is happening now as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to assume power during a double-barreled crisis involving a lethal virus and its economic fallout that experts say demands close cooperation. Instead, as the coronavirus overwhelms U.S. hospitals and kills more than 3,300 people a day on average, the Trump administration has balked at providing access to information and failed to consult with its successors, including about distributing the vaccines that offer the greatest hope of emerging from the pandemic.

For more than a month, the Biden team pressed to attend meetings that offered “real-time information on production and distribution of vaccine” important details for the president-elect’s advisers debating ways to bring the pandemic under control, said a transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.

While health agencies’ career staff have been helpful, it was not until this week that Biden officials were allowed to attend meetings of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s initiative to accelerate vaccine development and distribution. They were also not invited to the two Warp Speed sessions this weekend when Trump officials decided on sweeping changes to try to speed up the sluggish vaccine rollout. Nor were they briefed on those changes in advance.

While some of those policies mirrored Biden plans, others raised red flags among the presidentelect’s advisers. One is a recommendation to offer vaccines immediately to tens of millions under 65 who have high-risk medical conditions - a change the Biden team fears could overwhelm state supply and already stressed signup systems, while creating unrealistic expectations for those eager to get inoculated.

Another new policy, involving the controversial question of whether to penalize slower-moving states, would take effect the week after Biden becomes president. State officials say they are uncertain about whether to take the new policy seriously or to brush it off because it seems to lack support from the incoming administration.

The Biden transition official also said it took the transition team several weeks to get access to Tiberius, a data system that would have helped officials understand earlier “where vaccine is going, which states are ordering, when it is moving.”