Coronavirus Roundup: GAO to Review Scientific Integrity at FDA and CDC; Trump Takes Aim at Fauci

Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they would get a coronavirus vaccine as soon as it’s available, which is down from 69% in mid-August, according to a new survey by Stat News and The Harris Poll. While 59% of white respondents said they would get the vaccine as soon as possible (down from 70% in mid-August), 43% of Black respondents said they would (compared to 65% in mid-August). “When we’re looking at the intersection of vaccine and politics, everything is exaggerated. It’s not just racial disparities, but health disparities,” said Rob Jekielek, managing director of The Harris Poll told Stat News. “Black [individuals] are disproportionately less likely to be within 60 minutes of a primary care physician, which also means they’re less likely to get useful information and instead use a hospital emergency room as a primary mechanism for care. They’re also less likely to have insurance.” Here are some other recent headlines you might have missed. 

The Government Accountability Office agreed to take up the request from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., to review allegations of political interference at the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senators announced on Monday. GAO said it will look at whether or not the agencies’ “scientific integrity and communications policies have been violated and whether those policies are being implemented as intended.” 

President Trump has been taking aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force. During a call with campaign staff on Monday, he called Fauci “a disaster” and said “people are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong,” The New York Times reported. The president tweeted Fauci gets ample TV time, despite what Fauci said on CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday. Then on Tuesday morning, he said on Fox News that Fauci is “a nice guy,” but “sometimes not a team player.”

Biotechnology company Modern said the FDA could possibly issue emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine in December if there are positive interim results from a large trial slated for November, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Moderna has one of the leading vaccine candidates and is receiving funding from the Trump administration's “Operation Warp Speed.” 

The Justice Department inspector general said on Monday it’s taking part in a multi-agency oversight initiative to review coronavirus testing at federal agencies, which is spearheaded by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. The Justice IG will be focused on reviewing testing for inmates in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system.

The CDC strongly suggested all passengers and staff on buses, planes, trains and other forms of public transportation should wear masks in new guidance issued on Monday. The “recommendation followed a request from Vice President [Mike] Pence to CDC Director Robert Redfield, CDC officials said,” The Washington Post reported. “Although the agency already recommends the use of masks generally, the new language is more strongly worded and gives the airline industry more cover to press for mask-wearing, one CDC official said.”

A new study by the Defense Department found that it's very unlikely you’ll contract the coronavirus on an airplane due to their sophisticated filtration systems. “Even for simulated passengers sitting right next to a simulated infected one, researchers couldn’t come up with an instance where a traveler would have inhaled the 1,000 virons assumed to be necessary to contract COVID-19,” Federal News Network reported on Monday. 

The State Department said on Monday it returned to country-specific travel advisories, following the Global Travel Advisory implemented in March due to the pandemic. “We continue to monitor health and safety conditions around the world, working with the CDC and other agencies, as conditions evolve,” said the department. 

On Tuesday, the Data Coalition, a trade group, published a list of recommendations for transition planning that address improving the nation’s data infrastructure, which includes coronavirus figures. “The country lacks basic public health data standards as part of the effort to respond to the pandemic,” said the Data Coalition. “The next administration should prioritize the adoption of basic standards to support aggregation of local and state level data for national analyses.” 

Today’s GovExec Daily podcast episode features author Mark Schwartz talking about how to make the federal bureaucracy work better for everyone. 

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