Two government infectious disease experts sidelined by the Trump administration in the early days of the pandemic, Drs. Nancy Messonnier and Anne Schuchat, are poised to become prominent figures on Biden’s coronavirus task force.
“I really hope that we’ll be hearing from Anne Schuchat, from Nancy Messonnier, from people like that, starting in January,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert who sits on Biden’s coronavirus advisory team. “I think that would really change the quality of information, the tenor of the communication.”
Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was one of the first Trump administration officials to sound the alarm about the rising threat of a highly contagious virus that hitherto had been contained in China.
“As more and more countries experience community spread, successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” Messonnier told reporters in February. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”
Her blunt warning contradicted President Trump’s attempts to downplay the seriousness of the virus. He brushed off warnings from officials early on, including those from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Vice President Mike Pence. He said during a February rally that that by April, “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” After Messonnier’s warning, Trump complained to Azar that she was being alarmist and scaring the public, according to a New York Times investigation.
The warning also caused the stock market to plummet. Trump was returning from his trip to India when he learned of what Messonnier said and threatened to oust her from the CDC altogether.
Messonnier is also sister to former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller inquiry to investigate links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, was sidelined shortly after speaking alongside Azar on Feb. 25. She told reporters the United States had entered “a difficult and uncertain time” as the virus was beginning to spread from person to person at an increasing rate in other countries.
“We must use this time to continue to prepare for the event of community transmission in the United States,” Schuchat said. “Current global circumstances suggest it’s likely that this virus will cause a pandemic.”
Public health experts have argued that Trump has undermined the CDC’s authority by politicizing the pandemic. Dr. Richard Saitz, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, told the Washington Examiner over the summer that he was “particularly worried about the people at our health and science agencies” to get accurate scientific information about the pandemic out to the public without the intervention of partisan politics.
Trump administration officials’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic has led to a loss of trust in the CDC. Public opinion polling conducted by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that 54% of the public believes Trump has impeded the agency’s efforts to issue coronavirus guidelines and recommendations.
Biden pledged to restore public trust in the CDC’s ability to put an end to the pandemic when he announced his picks for the new coronavirus advisory board on Nov. 9.
“Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts,” he said.
The Biden transition team did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
