“The US is badly positioned; the federal government isn’t up to the task,” said Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “When I learned more about this virus my heart sank because I know the Trump administration doesn’t value basic science, it doesn’t understand it and it tends to reject it when it conflicts with its political narrative.”
Enck said that Trump “doesn’t seem to understand what a clinical trial is”, a reference to a White House meeting with pharmaceutical executives and public health officials on Monday where the president urged the attendees to release the anti-coronavirus drugs they are working on. “So you have a medicine that’s already involved with the coronaviruses, and now you have to see if it’s specifically for this,” Trump said. “You can know that tomorrow, can’t you?”
In the meeting, Trump wondered aloud why the flu vaccine can’t just be used for coronavirus. When told by Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that it could be up to 18 months before a vaccine is available to the public, Trump responded: “I mean, I like the sound of a couple months better, if I must be honest.”
At a political rally in Charlotte later that day, Trump told the crowd that a vaccine will be available “relatively soon” before adding that there are “fringe globalists that would rather keep our borders open than keep our infection – think of it – keep all of the infection, let it come in.”
Trump followed this with an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday in which he said the World Health Organization’s figure of a 3.4% death rate from coronavirus is “really a false number” and that his “hunch” is that the level is “way under 1%.” He offered no evidence for his contradiction of the world’s leading health body.
This sort of rhetoric, mixing inaccuracies, wild speculation and blunt nationalism, has raised concerns that many Americans, including ardent Trump supporters, are not getting the right information to deal with the virus outbreak.
“The scientific ‘truth’ about the virus may not match what the administration wants to hear, so the scientific ‘truth’ is at risk of being compromised before it is made public,” said Wendy Wagner, a University of Texas expert in how policy-makers use science.
Wagner noted there are no requirements that a president provide accurate information about a public health issue, enabling Trump to freely misreport that a vaccine will shortly be available.
We see it in this thread...
raised concerns that many Americans, including ardent Trump supporters, are not getting the right information to deal with the virus outbreak.
