5:09
- ABC News
- February 27, 2020
WH tries to manage coronavirus response amid fears
Vice President Mike Pence chaired an inter-agency meeting on the virus.
5:09
The vice president said Wednesday that he would \"continue to bring that team together, to bring to the president the best options for action\" and would reach out to state and local officials.
Vice President Mike Pence to members of coronavirus task force: \"My presence here today and working with you each and every day in the days ahead, I hope gives evidence of the priority the president's placed on this work.\" https://t.co/2MNICYsviI pic.twitter.com/3rWOrWHtap
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 27, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she spoke to Pence Thursday morning and \"expressed to him the concern that I had of his being in this position.\"
As Indiana's governor in 2015, Pence was criticized for his response to the state's worst outbreak of HIV in its history and the nation's first HIV outbreak linked to the injection of oral painkillers. He took two months to declare a state of emergency and opposed a clean-needle exchange over the advocacy of health officials.
Studies in medical journals have said the epidemic could have been prevented if the state had acted faster.
\"This is about resources; it's also about personnel,\" Pelosi said. \"It's also about respect for science, for evidence-based decision making, and it's about having so much of that talent that we are so proud of in our public health sector be available in other countries so that we can get a true … and accurate assessment of what is happening in other countries.”
Overall, Pelosi said, “Up until now the Trump administration has mounted an opaque and chaotic response to this outbreak.\"
At the Wednesday press conference, Trump made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, taking questions for the first time and trying to portray a sense of calm amid rising fears over the virus, called COVID-19.
But some of his comments did not clear up some of the public's confusion.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/azar-coronavirus-testimony-ap-jc-200227_hpEmbed_3x2_384.jpg\")
While health officials standing alongside him said cases would increase, Trump at times questioned whether that was true and downplayed the threat.
A day earlier, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official had warned Americans of \"significant disruption\" coming because of the virus, hours after the president said the situation was \"under control\" and that it was a \"problem that's going to go away.\"
On Wednesday evening, Trump told reporters that \"there's a chance that it won't spread.\" In the same press conference, he noted that in California a 15th case of the virus had been confirmed.
But he did not mention what the CDC announced soon after the news conference concluded: that the patient had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual, making it possibly the first case of \"community spread\" on American soil.
The case raises questions about whether broader testing should be allowed. It appeared to indicate the virus had been circulating among the local community and infecting people, including some who are not sure how or where they became infected, according to the CDC.
Azar had earlier referenced the case at a Wednesday afternoon congressional hearing -- saying its epidemiology was still being discerned -- but he did not provide any details or explain its potential implications.
The federal government has so far resisted wider testing, and Pence's office on Thursday morning did not respond to a question about whether that position had changed considering the California case.
At his Wednesday news conference, Trump even spread misinformation about the virus, incorrectly saying the mortality rate of influenza was higher than that of coronavirus.
While the mortality rate of the coronavirus is not fully understood, this week the World Health Organization posted preliminary findings from within China, pegging the fatality rate of 2 to 4% in the hard-hit city of Wuhan and 0.7% elsewhere in the country. By comparison, the flu's mortality rate is about 0.1%.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIAID), speaking next to Pence at the Thursday HHS photo op, also appeared to contradict the president, without mentioning his statement directly, providing an estimate of the coronavirus mortality rate.
\"The death rate, or what we call the case fatality rate, is about 2%, 2.5%. Whether that's the most accurate we don't know because it's conceivable that there are enough people who are below the threshold of detecting symptoms, so that the denominator that equation, might be larger. Hence the death rate, maybe less, but even that is a serious case fatality rate because seasonal influenza has a case fatality rate of 0.1%,\" Fauci said. \"Therefore, you have somewhat of a serious potential.\"
He called it \"a serious virus that we're taking very seriously.\"
Trump's attempt Wednesday to reassure also did not quell economic jitters, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping sharply Thursday for a fourth day in a row.
In a sign the White House had its eye on the economy, the administration on Thursday afternoon that two key economic officials, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, would join the president's coronavirus task force.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams would also join the group, the announcement from Pence and Azar said.
White House Deputy press secretary Judd Deere told ABC News Thursday that Trump was \"receiving regular updates on the coronavirus through meetings and phone calls today,\" although he did not provide more details, and the president's public schedule did not mention anything related to the virus.
The vice president's office announced Thursday that Pence has appointed a physician to serve in his office as the \"White House coronavirus response coordinator.\" Ambassador Debbie Birx, who has led the U.S. government's efforts to combat HIV/AIDS since 2014, will report to Pence in the new position.
\"She has deep experience in coordinating across agencies,\" Pence's office said in announcing Birx's new role. \"She has worked from the research bench to the clinic, but understands the primary focus must always be to reach the individuals most in need. She will bring her infectious disease, immunologic, vaccine research and inter-agency coordinating capacity to this position.\"
ABC News' Libby Cathey, Katherine Faulders, Anne Flaherty, John Parkinson and John Santucci contributed to this report.
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