Lawmakers press health officials on coronavirus prep
WASHINGTON — Fearful that more Americans may have coronavirus than is known, senior Trump administration officials told Congress on Thursday they are speeding distribution of testing kits to better assess the risk of a widespread outbreak in the United States.
But the assurances from Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, did not quell lawmakers’ criticism that the White House hasn’t adequately prepared for a potential public health crisis.
And several Democrats raised concerns that Azar’s department did not adequately train or provide necessary protective gear to health workers sent to assist Americans flown back from coronavirus hot zones in China and elsewhere last month and quarantined at Travis Air Force Base and March Air Reserve Base in California.
The accusations of improper safety protocols, including allowing the health workers to leave the bases, were outlined in a whistleblower complaint from an unidentified official in the Health and Human Services Department. In a statement, the department said it was “evaluating the complaint.”
Further roiling Washington
was a White House move to channel all public comments by federal health officials through the vice president’s office. It stoked new concerns that President Donald Trump and his deputies are seeking to withhold crucial information for partisan purposes.
“The American people do not need or want uninformed opinions or spin from its leaders,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday. “They want the truth.”
Democrats hammered administration officials at two congressional hearings Thursday, demanding more details on the public health response.
Those demands took on urgency after officials confirmed that a woman in Northern California with coronavirus was not tested for more than week after she was admitted to the University of California, Davis Medical Center.
Wider spread of coronavirus “could have begun yesterday,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, angrily told Azar, who testified at a budget hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.
“The question is whether the administration is moving based on this serious concern, or just putting a happy face on all this, (hoping) it will all go away when the spring flowers come out,” Doggett said.