Reading Dr. Deborah Brix's "Silent Invasion", her memoir of her work in the pandemic. It's basically chronological, and I'm just about 2 weeks in.
She is trying to maneuver among the various camps in the Trump administration:
- economics interests such as Sec. Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow, worried about economic impacts.
- politicos like Joe Grogan worried about political impacts.
- CDC scientists worried about science and being right.
- HHS bureaucrats who worry about implementation.
- Poli-scis, like Bob Redfield who's head of CDC and Tony Fauci, who's reluctant to get beyond the data.
Based on her experience in Pepfar--fighting HIV in Africa, she believes in the importance of data and worries about asymptomatic spread of virus. She's also concerned about being a woman in a male world and an outsider/newcomer to the administration's effort.
Most of all she's concerned about maneuvering the players towards what she sees as important.
A big hurdle is the lack of timely detailed data. She explains that CDC did not require data from the states; indeed they were afraid of antagonizing state officials and had the history of coaxing them to cooperate. I see this as fitting into a pet idea of mine--the fact that few federal government bureaucracies directly deal with citizens--FSA being one of the few.
No comments:
Post a Comment