Analysis: Experts concened that Trump's venting about COVID responses could hurt efforts to counter future threats

As Trump vents about covid, experts worry his moves could worsen next threat The president, still angry about the pandemic response, may be cutting into the country’s fundamental ability to identify emerging diseases and head them off. The Washington Post

In Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was told Friday to lay off an estimated 10 percent of its staff, including nearly an entire class of “disease detectives” — the infectious-disease experts charged with helping spot the next epidemic.

In West Texas, local officials warned about the spreading risk of measles, saying that an outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease had doubled to 48 cases since early last week.

And in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on ... coronavirus vaccination mandates in schools and universities.

“President Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise: ‘I will not allow schools to impose COVID vaccine mandates,’” a White House fact sheet read. Even some GOP officials acknowledged that the order addresses an issue that is effectively moot: Almost all colleges and universities stopped requiring covid-19 vaccination after the public health emergency ended in May 2023, according to the American College Health Association.

Five years after a public health crisis rattled Trump’s first White House, his second appears to be responding by rolling back the nation’s disease-spotting safety net — even as new threats lurk. Some of the emerging policies have been driven by backlash to the covid-19 response, after Trump made clear his disdain for the nation’s public health infrastructure. He and allies have said the U.S. approach to the virus, including mask and vaccine mandates and school shutdowns, was heavy-handed, a position that some Democrats now share too. But Trump’s latest moves may be cutting into the country’s fundamental ability to identify health threats and head them off, experts said.

...

Friday’s developments offered a stark contrast.

The new administration, propelled by Elon Musk, is shredding federal workers and agencies across government — using a “wood chipper,” not a scalpel, Musk has said — and offering red meat to supporters who remain angry about the Biden administration’s actions, including its pandemic-era vaccine policies. The executive order that Trump signed Friday would bar federal funds for educational agencies, schools and universities that require students to receive covid-19 vaccinations.

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