Total incompetence

On Jan. 29, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told President Trump the coronavirus epidemic was under control.

The U.S. government had never mounted a better interagency response to a crisis, Mr. Azar told the president in a meeting held eight days after the U.S. announced its first case, according to administration officials. At the time, the administration’s focus was on containing the virus.

When other officials asked about diagnostic testing, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, began to answer. Mr. Azar cut him off, telling the president it was “the fastest we’ve ever created a test,” the officials recalled, and that more than one million tests would be available within weeks.

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The CDC began shipping tests the following week, only to discover a flaw that forced it to recall the test from state public-health laboratories. When White House advisers later in February criticized Mr. Azar for the delays caused by the recall, he lashed out at Dr. Redfield, accusing the CDC director of misleading him on the timing of a fix. “Did you lie to me?” one of the officials recalled him yelling.

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For weeks, Mr. Azar made nearly every major administration announcement about the epidemic. He assured lawmakers all was going well and that the virus was contained.

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Mr. Azar waited for weeks to brief the president on the threat, oversold his agency’s progress in the early days and didn’t coordinate effectively across the health-care divisions under his purview.

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Mr. Azar [...] was eventually sidelined.

  Wall Street Journal

Obviously not soon enough. And he was replaced by that well-known medical expert, Mike Pnece.

[Azar's agency, Health and Human Services] oversees the distribution of $100 billion in stimulus funding to the health-care system. Many hospitals, doctors and health systems said the agency hasn’t released the funds quickly enough or prioritized the hardest-hit hospitals. An HHS spokeswoman said the secretary was following best practices and soliciting input.

I wonder if any of this could have anything to do with the fact that Azar was a drug company executive and pharmaceutical lobbyist instead of a health profesional.

FDA chief Stephen Hahn asked HHS in January if he could start contacting diagnostic and pharmaceutical companies about possible shortages of personal protective gear and other equipment, administration officials said. He was told no.

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Mr. Azar told associates such calls would alarm the industry and make the administration look unprepared, people familiar with the matter said. HHS officials waited weeks to contact manufacturers about possible shortages of medical supplies, the people said.

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Mr. Azar relied heavily on his chief of staff, Brian Harrison, who worked in the office of the deputy HHS secretary in the George W. Bush administration. Before returning to the agency in 2018, Mr. Harrison ran businesses in Texas building homes and breeding labradoodles.

By that standard, Azar was practically overqualified for his position.

Mr. Azar was reluctant for weeks to involve the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which typically oversees disaster-response operations, telling associates he wanted to keep control of the response and that including FEMA would further complicate the administration’s efforts. In the interview, Mr. Azar said he invited FEMA’s participation in early February.

FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor told lawmakers on March 20 he wasn’t invited to join the White House task force until earlier that week, and that FEMA hadn’t held its first “interagency synchronization call” until that day.

“I believe in servant leadership,” Mr. Azar said in the interview. “It is core to my being to empower leaders.”

Mr. Azar’s declaration of a public-health emergency on Jan. 31 meant that any lab that wanted to develop a test had to first seek approval from the FDA. The FDA didn’t clear any labs to conduct testing until Feb. 29, nearly a month later. For weeks, HHS blocked efforts to allow other labs’ involvement because Mr. Azar wanted the CDC to make and distribute the nation’s diagnostic tests.

Mr. Azar told associates he favored the CDC making its own test, rather than importing ones distributed by the World Health Organization, because the WHO tests weren’t reliable.

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Developing a test proved more complicated than anticipated. Days after the CDC began shipping tests in the first week of February, labs began calling. The tests were giving invalid results.

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In White House meetings, Mr. Azar gave no indication there was a problem with testing, administration officials said. Throughout February, Mr. Azar continued to assure the president and the rest of the task force that HHS had the situation under control, the officials said.

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On March 6, during a visit to the CDC with Mr. Azar, the president said: “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.” That still isn’t the case. Today, the U.S. continues to lag behind other countries on tests conducted per capita.

On Feb. 25, Nancy Messonnier, a CDC official, said the agency was preparing for a potential pandemic and that community spread of the virus was likely. The stock market plunged.

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A furious Mr. Trump, flying back to Washington from India, called Mr. Azar and threatened to oust Dr. Messonnier.

The next day, the president announced he was putting Vice President Pence in charge of the federal response—news Mr. Azar learned a few hours before the announcement.

Trump must like him at least a little if he got a few hours notice.

When Mr. Pence traveled to Washington state the next week to showcase the federal government’s support against the outbreak there, Mr. Azar wasn’t invited.

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Mr. Azar has privately acknowledged his clipped wings. He recently snapped at a White House aide inquiring about a congressional briefing, telling the aide he was “not even really the secretary of HHS anymore,” and to ask someone else, according to administration officials.

Prima donna and incompetent.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

"Heck of a job, Brownie."