Government’s Mixed Messages on Coronavirus Are Dangerous: Experts

Administration officials have given contradictory statements about how COVID-19 will affect the US, and it is not clear who is leading the infectious disease response effort, critics say.

Written byAshley Yeager

| 4 min read

Save for Later

Listen with Speechify

0:00

4:00

ABOVE: WIKIMEDIA, DANIEL MAYER

Conflicting statements about the potential severity of the coronavirus outbreak in the US from government officials is dangerous, public health experts warn.

“It’s really important for the U.S. government to be speaking with one common voice about these issues right now,” Tom Inglesby, an infectious diseases physician and director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells STAT.

That’s not happening. On Tuesday (February 25), a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official announced that COVID-19 could start spreading at the community level in the US shortly and that if the outbreak did hit the states, there could be “severe” disruptions to daily life. The next day, President Donald Trump held an evening press conference in which he said he didn’t think an outbreak in the US is inevitable. “I don’t think it’s inevitable because we’re doing ...

Interested in reading more?

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!

Join for free today

Already a member?

Add The Scientist as a preferred Google source to see more of our trusted coverage.

Meet the Author

Ashley Yeager
Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.
View Full Profile