“This was a management failure,” said one administration official, charging that Azar didn’t adequately plan for a worst-case coronavirus scenario that’s grown more likely by the day — even though Azar touted his bona fides as a veteran of the George W. Bush administration, where he helped fight crises like SARS and an anthrax scare. "CDC and FDA should have been working hand in hand to get Plan B, Plan C and Plan D ready to go," the official said.

“The administration’s response has been reactive, not proactive,” added a former HHS official. “A lot of what has happened has been driven by outside pressure,” like public health labs sounding the alarm that they were unable to perform the CDC’s tests.

Azar was abruptly removed as leader of the U.S. government’s coronavirus response Wednesday night and replaced by Vice President Mike Pence. Though the health secretary is still technically chairing the coronavirus task force, decision-making, media requests and even task force membership have increasingly been run through the White House. Since Azar's removal as coronavirus response leader, several of his deputies and rivals have been added to the task force.

POLITICO spoke to 17 current and former officials and individuals close to the Trump administration. Interviews with officials in HHS, who declined to comment on record for fear of retaliation, indicated that Azar’s failure to reach out to a wider circle of advisers is typical of his management style, which has grown increasingly distrustful of his own aides.

The surgeon general is supposed to be the nation’s chief spokesperson on threats to public health, but Surgeon General Jerome Adams had been little seen or heard from during the coronavirus threat until Azar was removed from leading the effort last week. Pence immediately added Adams to the task force, and the surgeon general this weekend began issuing coronavirus guidance on social media and appearing on national TV programs.

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The FDA oversees drug and lab test development, but Commissioner Stephen Hahn also wasn’t included on the Azar-led task force and has been frequently sidelined during the crisis. Hahn's most notable public moment was being summoned out of the crowd by Pence on Saturday to answer a question directed to President Donald Trump during a White House news conference.

Pence also added Hahn to the coronavirus task force after growing upset during a recent meeting that nobody could adequately answer a question about threats to the nation’s drug supply, two people with knowledge of the situation said.

While Hahn’s agency on Saturday did roll out instructions to let certain health organizations develop their own coronavirus lab tests, “FDA has been trying for some time to issue that guidance,” said one official, who added that the agency was waiting on approval from HHS and Azar. Another official said Hahn had begun devising the strategy weeks ago.

An HHS spokesperson defended Azar's leadership and the administration's broader strategy of trying to contain the virus from January through February, arguing that it bought valuable time to prepare the nation for an outbreak.

"HHS has been working with public health systems since Day One — that’s how we’ve been catching these cases and educating the American public on what to do if they become symptomatic," the spokesperson said. "The task force has held countless briefings with members of Congress and state and local leaders, so they can appropriately prepare and educate their constituencies."

Asked whether Azar was responsible for the CDC's testing failures, the spokesperson took issue with the framing. "Because of CDC surge capacity, there has been no backlog of tests despite the diagnostic issue," the spokesperson said, referencing problems that prevented many tests from working. "It’s unfair to say testing has been limited."

Public health groups have argued there was no testing backlog because CDC capacity problems forced HHS to limit testing to Americans who were returning from China or people close to a confirmed case, rather than expanding the testing more widely — and picking up potential cases of the virus spreading in the community.