The Trump administration response to Coronavirus is “terrifying”, according to former Obama cabinet secretary Kathleen Sebelius. She branded the White House approach “chaos.”
The former Secretary of Health and Human Services told Rolling Stone that the administration hasn’t done enough and instead created a “nightmare” scenario.
“In this case, every state needed the feds from the outset,” Sebelius said.
“And what has been terrifying to watch is that the federal government has refused to use the unique purchasing authority, the unique production authority and the national logistics system that no state can mobilize.”
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“In addition to that, the White House created a framework where states competed with one another and competed with the federal government.”
“The administration is creating a system of chaos and competition as opposed to collaboration. This has made the situation worse for most states,” she said.
Sebelius discussed what should happen next. She strongly indicated that if the federal government’s response doesn’t change, things will get worse before they get better.
“We’re in the early days of this episode,” Sebelius cautioned.
“I would just put on your radar screen the fact that we absolutely have to have a plan of what happens between now, the middle of April 2020, and when we finish a national vaccination campaign.”
“The federal role has to be funding, guidance, communication, logistics. The PPE, the equipment, the ventilator fight was just precursor.”
“Wait ‘til we get to a vaccine or to treatment. If everybody’s on their own to try and figure this out, we will have a total nightmare.”
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Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media
