How Team Biden uses workarounds to prep for COVID-19 fight
| Washington
Under normal circumstances, an American president-elect and his team have 2 陆 months to effect an orderly transition with the outgoing administration. Intelligence is shared, potential threats are flagged, policies and operations are explained.听
But these are not ordinary times. As winter approaches, the COVID-19 pandemic is surging, and President Donald Trump continues to fight the overwhelming evidence that he lost the Nov. 3 election. His administration has yet to allow the routine transition process to start, amid concern it would signal that the president has conceded defeat.
Analysts point to the risks a delayed transition could pose to national security. But there could also be an immediate impact on fighting the pandemic, officials say. Without a formal transition, for example, the Biden team cannot access the administration鈥檚 COVID-19 data and vaccine distribution plans.听Anthony Fauci, the nation鈥檚 top epidemiologist, 听of a slower rollout of potential vaccines.
Why We Wrote This
As cases spike to new highs across the United States, what role could national leadership play in helping overwhelmed states battle back against the pandemic?
President-elect Joe Biden, too, speaks of potentially severe outcomes from the delayed transition. 鈥淢ore people may die if we don鈥檛 coordinate,鈥� Mr. Biden 听
To date, the nation鈥檚 COVID-19 caseload has topped 11 million people, with more than 245,000 deaths. Public health experts warn of a dark winter ahead.
鈥淵ou are seeing right now a replay of the overwhelmed health care system鈥� from earlier this year, says Elias Zerhouni, former director of the National Institutes of Health under President George W. Bush. 鈥淧eople are exhausted. The first responders are out of their wits.鈥�
Add to this a president who appears mostly focused on politics. President Trump has not attended a White House Coronavirus Task Force meeting in more than five months, task force member Adm. Brett Giroir Sunday, though he added that Vice President Mike Pence briefs the president on the meetings. The task force last met Monday in a briefing for governors.
What the country needs: a bipartisan situation room
Given the magnitude of the public health crisis, a joint Trump-Biden effort on COVID-19 would make sense before Inauguration Day, Dr. Zerhouni suggests.听
鈥淎 situation room [should be] created, which should be bipartisan with the current and future administration,鈥� the former NIH director says. 鈥淭hat is the reasonable thing to do for the country.鈥澨�
Such a joint effort seems far from likely, given the hyperpartisan atmosphere. But Biden team members are hardly standing idly by, and have found workarounds as they prepare to take on the expected federal role 鈥� including public messaging and state coordination 鈥� in combating the nation鈥檚 worst pandemic in more than 100 years.听
Epidemiologist Kenneth Bernard notes that the Biden transition team is reaching out directly to local and state authorities.听
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the only option open to them,鈥� says Dr. Bernard, who ran offices on global health threats in the Clinton and second Bush White Houses. 鈥淭he Biden team is truly nailing it, given the constraints they鈥檝e been put under.鈥澨�
What he sees as a federal leadership vacuum in public health practice presents an opportunity for the Biden team. It gives them 鈥渁 little opening to at least reach out to the states, because they know that in 60 days this is going to be the new policy director for the United States,鈥� Dr. Bernard says.
The Biden transition team has also announced its own COVID-19 task force, populated by former government health officials, academics, and major figures in medicine. They now appear regularly on television, publicizing public health advice and presenting a counter to the controversial Trump coronavirus adviser, Scott Atlas.听
Dr. Atlas, who is a neuroradiologist and not an epidemiologist, has that masks don鈥檛 help stop the spread of COVID-19, contradicting guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Monday, Stanford University put out a distancing itself from听Dr. Atlas, who is a senior fellow at the university鈥檚 Hoover Institution.听
Dr. Fauci, a civil servant and member of Mr. Trump鈥檚 coronavirus task force, is also ubiquitous on TV and expected to remain a key public health voice under a President Biden.听
On Tuesday, Dr. Fauci said the nation needed a more unified, national approach to combat the virus.听鈥淲e need some fundamental public health measures that everyone should be adhering to, not a disjointed 鈥極ne state says one thing, the other state says another thing,鈥欌�� he said at a virtual conference.
Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, says that during a normal presidential transition, there would be lots of mutual learning on both sides, as the old team prepares to hand off to the new team.
In the case of the Biden team, a benefit is that it鈥檚 only been four years since the Democrats handed over the reins to the Trump team. Memories are that much fresher, though of course they left office before the coronavirus pandemic started. But top players in the Biden team have experience dealing with viral disease outbreaks, starting with incoming Biden chief of staff Ron Klain, who served as President Barack Obama鈥檚 鈥淓bola czar鈥� in 2014 and 2015.
鈥淯nder normal circumstances, many of these meetings [of transition teams] are friendly, to a point,鈥� says Professor Light. 鈥淭he best form of transition briefing is interactive and involves mutual learning. There can be a kind of drop-your-swords thing going on.鈥�
This time, he suspects, 鈥渢hat ain鈥檛 happening.鈥�
At local level, it鈥檚 all hands on deck, every day
On the ground, in local public health departments around the country, the challenges have been the same for months, but now, amid the latest surge, it鈥檚 all ramping up again 鈥� and it鈥檚 exhausting.
鈥淲e have to be in all-hands-on-deck response mode every single day,鈥� says Lisa Macon Harrison, public health director for Granville and Vance counties in rural North Carolina.
North Carolina public health is decentralized, which means local officials have a lot of authority and regulations vary among counties. Communication is a challenge, she says, and her department has to stay in contact with national, state, and local leaders, while also monitoring trends at each level.
鈥淲e鈥檙e doing an amazing job with the resources we have [but] we could always be doing better,鈥� says Ms. Harrison, a board member of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard and it鈥檚 a very long response. And that gets our folks kind of tired around the edges.鈥�
She鈥檚 also disappointed that Americans don鈥檛 have a common, trusted source for information on public health measures.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just sad that the sanctity of life and the promotion of health is not something that feels like a unifying force for Americans,鈥� Ms. Harrison says. 鈥淭his should be easy for us to come together and decide to fight together and to keep our neighbor and our family and our friends safe. That shouldn鈥檛 end up being a political infight.鈥�
When asked for sources of optimism, policy analysts say they hope that once there鈥檚 a presidential transition, the politics of the pandemic will fade. Even before a transition, there鈥檚 no reason good work can鈥檛 happen.
鈥淭here are people still on the Trump team, still hanging around, doing the right thing,鈥� says Professor Light. And 鈥渕y hunch is that the Biden team is way up to speed. There鈥檚 an awful lot of expertise there.鈥�
