Nancy Messonnier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who caught the White House off guard by warning of major disruptions from COVID-19 in February, is an “outstanding leader” and remains a key figure in the government’s response to the virus, the nation’s top disease-fighter said Thursday.
“She has not been sidelined,” CDC Director Robert Redfield told a House Appropriations Committee panel monitoring the response to the pandemic.
Dr. Messonnier rose to prominence by warning Americans on Feb. 25 that COVID-19 could become a major problem in the U.S. and that families should gird for changes to their work life, child care arrangements and other parts of everyday life.
“We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad,” she told reporters at the time.
Her warning exacerbated a selloff on Wall Street and reportedly irked President Trump, who was returning to the U.S. from a brief trip to India. Upon returning, the president held a White House briefing in which he suggested the 15 known cases in the U.S. could be knocked back down to zero.
The CDC stopped doing media calls in early March, as the White House held its own briefings, meaning the public no longer heard from Dr. Messonnier.
Yet her warning seemed prescient by mid-March, as states issued stay-at-home orders and the administration called on Americans to work and learn at home and avoid large gatherings.
State economies are beginning to reopen, though over 100,000 Americans have died from the virus.
Asked if Dr. Messonnier’s initial warning was correct, Dr. Redfield on Thursday said, “Yes.”
“Dr. Messonnier remains one of our outstanding leaders,” he said. “She is a great scientific ally of mine and other leaders.”
He said Dr. Messonnier is the agency’s project-leader on Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s effort to land a vaccine to COVID-19 in record time.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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