Dr. del Rio said federal health officials such as the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, or Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, must begin convening daily news conferences to provide public health guidance.
In the absence of leadership, local officials feel as if they are struggling alone. New weekly cases among nursing home residents jumped fourfold from the end of May to late October, and deaths have more than doubled in 20 states, according to R. Tamara Konetzka and Rebecca J. Gorges, researchers at the University of Chicago who analyzed data from the C.D.C.
The depressing message is that nothing much has changed since the spring, Professor Konetzka said.
Even many large hospital chains, which say they have adequate supplies of medical gear, continue to operate in crisis mode. That often means requiring employees to repeatedly reuse respirator masks that are meant to be discarded after each use.
Deborah Burger, a president of National Nurses United, the largest organization of registered nurses, said the lack of clear guidance from the C.D.C. had allowed hospitals to create their own standards for reusing disposable protective gear, which she said put hospital workers and patients at increased risk of infection.
Were 11 months into the pandemic, and the administration is still not adequately addressing the safety of health care workers and the safety of our communities, she said. Ive been a nurse for over 45 years, and I have never seen anything like this. Its like were in The Twilight Zone.
The White House has fixated on Operation Warp Speed, the administrations crash vaccine and therapy development program, while its coronavirus task force has whittled down to rote weekly gatherings in the Situation Room. But far from celebrating the Pfizer news on Monday, the administration initiated a round of recriminations.read more
The Surging Coronavirus Finds a Federal Leadership Vacuum
