Incompetence and an unnatural obsession with optics are the milk and cookies of the trump administration.

“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.

You don’t say:

In a sign of growing tension among the Trump administration’s health agencies, officials are expressing frustration that a top scientist was initially rebuffed when attempting to visit the CDC in Atlanta last month to help coordinate the government’s stalled coronavirus testing, two individuals with knowledge of the episode told POLITICO.

Timothy Stenzel, who is the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, was made to wait overnight on the weekend of Feb. 22 — as senior health department officials negotiated his access in a series of calls — before Centers for Disease Control granted him permission to be on campus. Stenzel’s visit had been expected, the individuals said.

[…]

A senior HHS official confirmed the episode.

A CDC spokesperson said that the delay was because of a scheduling misunderstanding.

[…]

Stenzel later found evidence of lab contamination, which he reported to HHS officials and may have contributed to the coronavirus lab-test delays and other problems.

[link omitted]

If this is the public-health A Team under Donald Trump, forget face masks and buy a full biohazard suit.

It’s remarkable how much damage can be done in such a short period of time by a thin-skinned moron and his flunkies.

–alopecia