Ousted US official to warn Congress of 'unprecedented illness, fatalities'

Rick Bright, an ousted US health official, will warn Congress of "unprecedented illness and fatalities" if the country fails to ramp up preparation against the coronavirus pandemic, according to his written testimony to a congressional panel.

"Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities," Bright will say in a testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's health subcommittee.

"Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history," according to the testimony.

Bright is scheduled to testify on Thursday before the panel after he filed a whistleblower complaint last week alleging that he was removed in April as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for opposing the broad use of a drug frequently touted by the White House as a coronavirus treatment.

"When I resisted efforts to promote and enable broad access to an unproven drug, chloroquine, to the American people without transparent information on the potential health risks, I was removed from BARDA," according to the testimony.

The official, who is working at the National Institutes of Health with a narrower role, will also say that he sought to warn his superiors about potential shortages of critical medical supplies as far back as January, but his "urgency was dismissed" and he "faced hostility and marginalization" from Health and Human Services officials, after conveying his concerns to a senior White House official.

"As I reflect on the past few months of this outbreak, it is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been. We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook," Bright will testify.

President Donald Trump said last week that he didn't know who Bright was, "but to me he's a disgruntled employee and if people are that unhappy they shouldn't work".

"I hadn't heard great things about him," he added.

In response, Bright told CBS News that he was not disgruntled.

"I am frustrated at a lack of leadership. I am frustrated at a lack of urgency to get a head start on developing lifesaving tools for Americans. I'm frustrated at our inability to be heard as scientists. Those things frustrate me," he said.

The US currently accounts for the world's highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths at 1,390,406 and 84,119, respectively, according to the latest count by Johns Hopkins University.

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the nation has not had the pandemc under total control yet, as states, shut down for months, were reopening or planning to reopen.

"If you think we have it completely under control, no we don't," said Fauci, also a key member of the White House coronavirus task force.

"If you look at the dynamics of the outbreak, we are seeing a diminution of hospitalizations and infections in some places such as in New York City, which has plateaued and is starting to come down, but in other parts of the country, we are seeing spikes."

He told US lawmakers that it was "entirely conceivable and possible" that a second wave will happen this fall.

( With inputs from IANS )