Efforts to address the outbreak risk are being undermined by an exodus of scientists and a leader who regularly distorts facts

The Trump administration’s jettisoning of scientific expertise and the president’s habit of spreading misinformation means the US is in a much weaker position to deal with the threat of coronavirus, experts have warned.

There are now at least 149 known coronavirus cases across 13 states, with 11 deaths. US lawmakers have put together an $8.3bn emergency bill to help contain the virus, with laboratories set to be allowed to develop their own coronavirus tests without seeking regulatory approval first.

But the efforts to address the outbreak risk being undermined by three years of a Trump administration that has seen an exodus of scientists from a variety of agencies, the scrapping and remodeling of scientific panels to favor industry interests and a president who regularly dismisses or distorts scientific facts – from the climate crisis to whether the moon is part of Mars – in public.

White House's 'muzzled' coronavirus messaging is dangerous, experts say Read more

“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.

This situation is exacerbated by a downsizing of scientific expertise within the US government. The EPA’s staff numbers, for example, are a third smaller than they were when Trump took power. In the first two years of the Trump administration, more than 1,600 federal scientists left various government agencies, according to Office of Personnel Management employment data.

The administration has attempted even deeper cuts: Trump’s 2021 budget proposal, submitted just days after international alarm was raised over the coronavirus, included a 16% reduction in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Trump has said that the CDC and other agencies could rapidly restaff if needed but this concept runs counter to the standard practices of government-run research.

“Since Trump has been trying to shrink them, moreover, I worry that the agency directors are currently not well-positioned to act swiftly to expand the staff,” Wagner said. “The agencies may also fail to attract the best scientists going forward because of Trump’s poor track record with the ‘deep state’ and science more generally.”

Enck said that previous disasters, such as hurricanes, have seen a “seamless” response from federal, state and local governments but the current situation may now require states, businesses and academia to fill the void where once the federal government provided leadership.

“There’s definitely been a brain drain in this administration, there has been an attack on science that doesn’t bode well for what we are seeing now,” she said. “Others are going to have to step up. The best thing the president could do right now is to stop talking.”

Joel Clement, a former policy director at the Department of Interior who left government after the Trump administration reassigned him from his climate-focused role, said the administration had undermined efforts to deal with threats such as pandemics.



Clement said Trump should bolster public trust in the civil servants dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, restore the scientific strength of the federal government and fund programs that will help prevent the spread of threats like the virus.



“In other words, he needs to do the opposite of what we know he will do,” Clement said. “He is more concerned about the safety of his fragile ego than he is about the safety of Americans.”