A whistleblower has warned that the effects of Coronavirus this winter will be devastating unless the country is better prepared. His testimony to Congress has been released.
Dr. Rick Bright claims he was fired as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority because he opposed the widespread use of hydroxyhcloroquine.
President Donald Trump and his allies pushed the untested Coronavirus treatment. Bright will testify before Congress on Thursday and CNN obtained his prepared testimony.
“Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright will say.
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“If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”
“Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history,” he will say.
Bright will tell the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee that he was ousted from his position because he opposed the use of an hydroxychloroquine.
He will say he “resisted efforts to promote and enable broad access to an unproven drug, chloroquine, to the American people without transparent information on the potential health risks.”
“As I reflect on the past few months of this outbreak, it is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been,” Bright’s written testimony says.
“We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook.”
“The virus is out there, it’s everywhere. We need to be able to find it, to isolate it and to stop it from infecting more people,” Bright will tell Congress.
“We need tests that are accurate, rapid, easy to use, low cost, and available to everyone who needs them.”
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Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media
