Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina | Email Max As the Biden administration has worked to confront the lingering Covid-19 pandemic, it has cultivated a group of medical doctors with large Twitter followings to help them with the task. Since the transition last winter, Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY has been leading periodic off-the-record discussions that include a few dozen physicians, academics and other well-known Covid-19 commentators with large Twitter followings like Baltimore’s former health commissioner and CNN analyst LEANA WEN, Baylor University virologist PETER HOTEZ and New York University epidemiologist CÉLINE GOUNDER, according to several people familiar with the calls. Other top officials like CDC Director ROCHELLE WALENSKY and the president’s chief medical adviser TONY FAUCI have joined the calls too. These public health experts — referred to by some White House officials as the "Twitter docs" — have often helped disseminate best health practices and shaped public opinion on the country’s most pressing issue. Administration officials believe they’ve been valuable outside validators and communicators in the campaign to encourage mask wearing and vaccinations. “When a public health expert says it, it carries more weight,” an administration official explained. The dynamic, however, has become more fraught in recent months, with many of these Covid-19 social media influencers criticizing the administration on its booster policy, travel bans, and other elements of its pandemic response. The series of disagreements have made it harder for the administration to collaborate with this online public health community, and exposed the White House to blowback from the very experts whom they relied on to help disseminate their message on TV and social media. Administration officials have questioned whether being thrust into the Twitter and cable spotlight has compelled some health experts to embrace sharper, less nuanced positions on the pandemic fight. “Some of them get paid to have takes. We get paid to end this pandemic,” one official quipped, drawing a bright line between the administration personnel working on the pandemic and those in its orbit who were engaging in Monday morning quarterbacking. Administration officials also downplayed the influence medical Twitter commentary had in shaping administration policy. Wen and Gounder declined to comment on their dealings with the White House, and Hotez called it "refreshing" that, unlike during the Trump era, the administration welcomes outside feedback. But some health experts in contact with the administration since its early days are bristling at what they describe as increasingly one-way communication that’s less interested in hearing from doctors on the ground and more invested in turning them into unofficial surrogates. “It’s much more, here is what we want all of you to be saying,” one well-known health expert said of the administration’s off-record calls, adding that when participants have responded with concerns about a policy, “sometimes that is not met very well on the other end.” The dynamic began souring in August when a faction of the health experts clashed publicly and privately with the White House over its original plan to give boosters to all adults by Sept. 20. Some of these outside advisers warned on a contentious call that the administration was getting ahead of its scientific agencies. Biden officials ultimately pared back their booster rollout, only to then get pilloried by many of those same experts for its confusing eligibility guidelines. With Omicron’s emergence now compelling much of the medical community to advise that everyone get a booster shot, several aides pointed to the episode as evidence the White House has been operating firmly within the bounds of sound science. “It shows we have actually gotten more right about this pandemic than probably the Twitterati will admit,” the administration official said. “And I think if you look back, many of them have gotten key decision points wrong – boosters being the primary example.” Still, the disagreements have persisted. Last week, many in the public health community broke with the White House again, roundly criticizing the president’s new testing plan—which relies on insurers to reimburse consumers for the cost of the test—as convoluted and ineffectual. The rollout also prompted complaints that the administration was shutting out experts’ better ideas. Gounder — an infectious disease specialist who advised the Biden transition — took to Twitter to blast officials for “not listening & welcoming different opinions.” It was the kind of sharp message that prompted cheers on Twitter and eye-rolling in the West Wing, especially among those who think Gounder has used her role on Biden’s transition advisory team to craft a reputation as a straight shooter unafraid to criticize former colleagues. Despite these frictions, the White House still has close ties to some Twitter docs, as well as some favorites. ASHISH JHA, the president of Brown University’s School of Public Health, is widely respected for the clarity and consistency of his messaging on the pandemic. Others, like virologist TREVOR BEDFORD, are admired in the administration not just for their expertise but for resisting weighing in on aspects of the pandemic not in their lane. And then there’s a whole other, far bigger, group of Covid commentators who have no credibility — or access — within the White House because they’re consistently wrong or seen as trying to build their personal brand. “There’s a third category of docs who we pay the least attention to, who zig-zag from hot topic to hot topic,” the administration official said. Aides refused to name names in that group, however, for fear of sparking a Twitter war with those doctors’ sizable followings (lol). MEA CULPA: In yesterday’s West Wing Playbook, we incorrectly wrote that Republican Rep. JIM COMER is from Tennessee. He represents the 1st District in Kentucky. We regret the error. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you DOMINIQUE A. DANSKY BARI, director of stenography? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. 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