WASHINGTON (AP) – It was the Trump show for almost a year. Now President Joe Biden is calling on the country’s top scientists and public health experts to regularly educate the American public about the pandemic that claimed more than 425,000 American lives.
Starting Wednesday, administration experts will hold three weekly briefings on the state of the outbreak, efforts to contain it, and the race to deliver vaccines and therapies to end it.
Expect a stark contrast to the latest government briefings, when public health officials were repeatedly undermined by a president who unhesitatingly shared his unproven ideas.
“We are bringing back the pros to talk about COVID in an unvarnished way,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday. “Any questions you have, that’s how we will deal with them, because we will let science speak again.”
The new briefings, which begin just a week after Biden’s term in office, are intended to be an explicit rejection of his predecessor’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak.
Claiming to take center stage, President Donald Trump confused the message of the country’s top public health experts in the critical early days of the virus and ultimately largely gagged them as the pandemic’s deadly toll grew ever higher.
The new briefings are part of Biden’s effort to restore public confidence in institutions, particularly the federal government, with a commitment to share the bad news with the good guys.
“I’ll always talk to you about the state of affairs,” he said Tuesday, echoing a central pledge from his inaugural speech.
It’s a message that Biden brought to the White House. As a candidate, he warned that the nation was facing a wave of coronavirus cases in what was to be a “dark winter”; Trump, for his part, falsely claimed that the worst of the virus was over.
Dr. David Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University’s School of Public Health, said having briefings from health officials that are “based on serious science” would go a long way towards improving public perception of it. vaccine.
“There is a degree of hesitation about vaccines, so it is very important to educate people about the vaccine, how it works, how safe it is and how it can protect against the disease, as well as slow transmission,” he said.
The stakes for Biden, whose presidency hinges on his handling of the pandemic and the largest vaccination campaign in world history, could hardly be higher.
Biden is urging a weary population to rejoin social distance measures and the wearing of masks, pointing to scientific models that suggest the practices could save 50,000 lives in the coming months. He has insisted that members of his governance model have the best behaviors for the country.
Those reports found few champions in the former administration, as Trump openly ignored his own administration’s science-based guidelines. Face covers were scarce at his reelection meetings, and social aloofness was almost non-existent.
In the weeks leading up to Biden’s inauguration, the US set records in new cases and reported deaths almost every day, as many states reintroduced costly restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. Still, Trump limited the media appearances of his top scientists and public health officials and continued to spread misinformation.
Asked by CNN last week whether the Trump administration’s lack of candor about the virus had cost lives, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, replied, “You know, that most likely happened. “
The Trump administration ended the practice of regular scientific briefings early in the pandemic, after Trump expressed anger at the dire warnings from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Nancy Messonnier in February, on the threat of the virus.
Trump later told journalist Bob Woodward that he had “toned it down” to avoid panic about the virus. Aides said he was also trying to protect the economy to increase his chances of re-election.
When the pandemic hit the US last spring, Trump took the position of a “war president,” conducting extensive briefings at the White House, where he – not science – was the star. Trump pointed out the high ratings for his early performances and timed the sessions to catch up on the national evening news.
From the briefing room, Trump shared his skepticism about face-covering clothing, despite scientists’ widespread conclusions that wearing a mask helps prevent the spread of the virus. He wondered aloud if Americans could swallow toxic bleach to kill the virus like cleaning a surface. He encouraged governors to “reopen” their states, even as things spiked.
Wednesday’s briefing will be held virtually, rather than in person at the White House, to allow for questions from health journalists and maintain a set timing regardless of the schedule in the West Wing. It will include Jeff Zients, the Biden Administration’s Coordinator for Pandemic Response; his deputy, Andy Slavitt; Fauci; Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the chair of Biden’s COVID-19 Equality Task Force; and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC.
It’s because government scientists, led by Fauci, regularly appear in the media to share their expertise in television and podcast interviews. Last week, Fauci called his current circumstances “liberating” and offered that “one of the new things in this administration is that if you don’t know the answer, don’t guess.”
Hamer said the Trump administration had created enough confusion and distrust around the coronavirus and vaccine that the Biden administration has a long way to go to restore public confidence, adding that some Americans may never come.
It will take time. It is difficult to say exactly how much damage has been done, “he said.” I think there may be pockets in the country that are more resistant to listening to evidence, because they may have set their sights on what they have heard from the past. But others can still be influenced and educated. “
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Associated Press writer Alexandra Jaffe contributed to this report.