You have to read this whole thing to believe it:
When Anthony Fauci, clad in a white lab coat, invited an “NBC Nightly News” correspondent into his offices this week and described the coronavirus as an “outbreak” that was reaching “likely pandemic proportions,” the immunologist was acting as he long has during public health crises: delivering a fact-based warning to the public.
But at the White House, the more politically minded officials overseeing the administration’s response were irritated that Fauci — the veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — had used the word “pandemic” without giving anyone on Vice President Pence’s staff a heads-up, according to two people familiar with the situation…
The White House is handling the rapidly expanding coronavirus as a public relations problem as much as a public health crisis. Officials are insisting on message discipline among government scientists and political aides alike, part of what they say is a responsible effort to try to calm jittery Americans and provide uniform and transparent information.
Trump — who has closely monitored news coverage and the gyrating financial markets, which he sees as a barometer of his reelection chances — has privately griped about what he considers to be hysteria from both the media and his own public health officials, according to people familiar with his complaints, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid assessments. White House aides managing the response have also sought to focus on tamping down what they consider to be alarmist rhetoric.
[…]
As Trump toured a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday afternoon, he and Fauci appeared chummy. The president heaped praise on the infectious-diseases expert, telling him, “The world is extremely happy that you’re involved.”
But their bonhomie belied the tensions in an administration where the president tolerates only one star: himself. Public health experts and other government officials have found themselves struggling to manage the delicate balance of performing their jobs while not angering the president or his political aides.
A Tuesday profile of Fauci in Politico, for example, was generally viewed dismissively inside the West Wing as an unnecessary and self-promoting distraction amid the crisis.
Pence allies say the vice president is perhaps uniquely equipped to lead the administration’s response — which involves not only traditional crisis management and bureaucratic streamlining, but also managing Trump’s shifting moods.
Trump trusts Pence, who routinely seizes opportunities to demonstrate his fealty, and therefore the vice president is able to present the president with tough information in private, these people said.
Several people within and close to the Department of Health and Human Services said Pence’s office was micromanaging communications related to the administration’s response, and was overly concerned with day-to-day news cycles and public perception rather than long-term strategy about how to contain the growing outbreak.
Two HHS officials said Pence’s office had implemented a top-down structure by dictating to the agency how it should be communicating with the public, emphasizing that officials should be honest and open but refrain from using “alarmist” language about the outbreak in interviews.
Some close to the administration were advising Pence’s staff to worry less about day-to-day news cycles and headlines. Instead, they have counseled the vice president’s office to be fully transparent with the public about why certain mitigation measures may be needed, such as closing schools, rather than worrying whether those precautions would spook the public, adding that the best thing to ensure the president’s reelection was to stamp out the outbreak…
At a Monday roundtable meeting at the White House, Trump prodded pharmaceutical executives about how quickly they could get a coronavirus vaccine to market. He appeared not to understand the vaccine testing process, despite efforts by some executives to clarify the timeline, and incorrectly asserted that a vaccine could be ready “over the next few months” or “within a year.”
It fell to Fauci to correct the president.
“A year to a year and a half,” Fauci said.
Later on in the conversation, Trump chimed in, “I like the sound of a couple of months better, I must be honest with you.”
Fauci then asked that the pharmaceutical executives educate the president.
“Would you make sure you get the president the information that a vaccine that you make and start testing in a year is not a vaccine that’s deployable?” Fauci said. “So he’s asking the question, ‘When is it going to be deployable?’ And that is going to be, at the earliest, a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go.”
But on Tuesday, during a gathering of the National Association of Counties, Trump presented a rosy outlook. “We’re moving at a maximum speed to develop the therapies, not only the vaccines, but therapies,” he said. “Therapies is sort of another word for cure.
And he claimed that during his meeting with pharmaceutical executives, he had pressed the leaders to expedite the vaccine process.
“I said, ‘Do me a favor. Speed it up, speed it up,’ he said. “And they will. They are working really hard and quick.”
Every time I see Fauci he’s struggling to find words to describe what’s going on without offending the president. It’s stunning to watch it. This phenomenon may not be the sole reason we are behind the curve in dealing with this outbreak. But it sure as hell isn’t helping.
We know, irrefutably, one thing about the coronavirus in the United States: The number of cases reported in every chart and table is far too low.
The data are untrustworthy because the processes we used to get them were flawed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s testing procedures missed the bulk of the cases. They focused exclusively on travelers, rather than testing more broadly, because that seemed like the best way to catch cases entering the country.
California just declared a health emergency.
We are in trouble.