Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Just over a year ago, President JOE BIDEN introduced a comprehensive plan to rein in Covid and harden the nation’s defenses against future public health threats. The 96-page blueprint contained ideas for ensuring the U.S. emerged from the pandemic better prepared than when it entered: New investments in R&D, expanded safety net programs, and more. “We are not going to just ‘live with COVID,’” the plan vowed. But as Biden prepares to declare a symbolic end to the pandemic on Thursday, living with Covid is precisely what America is doing. The White House’s most ambitious proposals have been mothballed. Public health infrastructure constructed to track the virus is being dismantled. The money and enthusiasm for combating Covid and perils like it has long since run dry. “The United States is probably worse prepared for the next pandemic than it was for this one,” said LAWRENCE GOSTIN, a Georgetown University public health professor who has informally advised the White House. “We’ve gone backwards.” That’s the consensus expressed to West Wing Playbook by more than a half-dozen health experts and pandemic advisers, who say the horrors of 2020 and the successes in blunting the virus’ worst effects have collectively taught us nothing. They pointed to several factors that have left the U.S. more vulnerable to biological dangers than it was in 2019. Public health recommendations are now more likely to be viewed through a partisan lens, polling shows, and distrust in science has grown significantly. Americans are worn out by shifting pandemic guidelines and less inclined to listen when new alarms are raised. Lawmakers see little benefit in pushing for investments that have no immediate payoff. And at every level of government, burned out health officials are fleeing the job. “It’s truly the question that keeps me up at night,” JENNIFER KATES, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said of the government’s ability to protect against a next emergency. “The fractured response, the politicization of science, the politicization of basic public health measures — not only are those still there, but they might’ve gotten worse.” There’s still persistent debate in public health circles over whether it was all inevitable, especially after former President DONALD TRUMP began criticizing his Covid advisers and sowing doubt about pandemic precautions in mid-2020. The move opened the door for Republicans to ramp up their attacks on the Biden administration a year later, transforming the Covid response into a purely partisan issue, said JOHN M. BARRY, author of “The Great Influenza,” a definitive history of the 1918 pandemic. “It was just off the scale,” he said. “That is a major contributor to where we are now.” But the Biden administration also shoulders some blame, he said, calling its “confused and uncoordinated” messaging on masks, vaccines and other key issues a significant factor in damaging public trust. Others pointed to Biden’s decision to impose vaccination mandates as a misstep that hardened skepticism in certain populations. Democrats’ fumbling of a plan early last year to appropriate $15 billion in new Covid funds was also a “singular crucial mistake” that stalled bigger-picture preparedness plans, Gostin said. The White House has largely dismissed criticism of its Covid response. Aides fault Republicans for blocking access to additional funding and insisting the nation has the vaccines and treatments needed to keep the virus at bay. Some work will continue past May 11, officials note, including temporary support for the uninsured and a potential $5 billion effort to develop next-generation vaccines. But privately, officials who worked on Covid acknowledge that Biden’s response is as much a story of success in charting a path out of this pandemic as it is a missed opportunity to rally political will and the public behind preparations for the next one. And within his administration, the public health vacancies are piling up. ASHISH JHA, the White House’s Covid response coordinator, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief ROCHELLE WALENSKY plan to depart soon. Top National Security Council pandemic official RAJ PANJABI will also leave the administration later this summer. NSC spokesperson ADAM HODGE said Panjabi’s departure was pre-planned to coincide with the end of his detail to the office, and that a successor has already been selected. The White House’s new pandemic preparedness office, meanwhile, doesn't have a director and will not have any funding of its own. In recent days, some officials had speculated over whether Biden would publicly mark the end of the Covid emergency in some significant way. But with the White House focused on a debt ceiling crisis, worries over the southern border and the coming G-7 summit, there’s currently no plan for Biden to give an address on Covid. The pandemic, once again, had been overtaken by other priorities. MESSAGE US — Are you DEBORAH BIRX, the Covid response coordinator during the Trump administration? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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