“I’m accurately quoted in The Washington Post,” he conceded, as Trump countered that the headline was wrong. It accurately described Redfield warning that if a coronavirus resurgence came at the same time as the flu season, hospitals could be overwhelmed.
The President also openly clashed with his top public health officials on the likelihood of the virus returning for another assault in the fall — saying only “embers” of disease were likely that could be easily put out.
The President did break with Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, saying he “strongly disagrees” with aggressive plans to open businesses including hair salons on Friday as pro-Trump southern states look to ease stay-at-home orders.
But his rebuke followed days of Trump all but goading southern conservative states to open up, even though many don’t yet meet White House opening guidelines. And a source familiar with calls between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the Georgia governor said that both men expressed support and praise for Kemp’s move to reopen businesses.
Wednesday’s show, orchestrated by Trump in his campaign style-briefing, is unlikely to ease fears amid Americans tiring of stay-at-home orders but wary of reemerging into normal life.
It also exacerbated the consistent impression that the President’s fast shifting positions are based more on hunches and his political requirements than a factual reading of the progression of the crisis that is far from abating.
Top official said he was ousted over Trump-endorsed treatments
The drama involving Dr. Rick Bright, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, appeared to be the latest occasion when a senior official who contradicted Trump’s pet causes paid with his job.
Bright claimed he was transferred to another post because of his “insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address Covid-19 into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”
But a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said Bright himself sought out choloquine, one of the controversial treatment drugs.
“As it relates to chloroquine, it was Dr. Bright who requested an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for donations of chloroquine that Bayer and Sandoz recently made to the Strategic National Stockpile for use on Covid-19 patients. The EUA is what made the donated product available for use in combating Covid-19,” said Caitlin Oakley, deputy assistant secretary at HHS.
Trump, spent several weeks all but prescribing hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 patients, saying doctors had little to lose in using a drug not clinically trialed for the disease. A new study however suggests that the therapy might actually harm the prognosis of critically ill patients.
The President insisted he had nothing to do with Bright’s ouster.
“I have never heard of him. I don’t know who he is,” Trump insisted.
In staggeringly frank comments issued through his attorneys, Bright suggested that the leadership of the Health and Human Services Department was not committed to following science and wanted to fund drugs promoted by Trump’s political allies. He also claimed the administration tried to broaden the use of hydroxychloroquine in an unsafe manner and may even have endangered lives by pushing the drug, which is typically used to treat lupus and other conditions.
“Sidelining me in the middle of this pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis,” Bright wrote.“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics.”
Source:edition.cnn.com/
