Just to get the latter clear, the Daily Beast reported:
The Trump administration was warned in late January that it had a critical shortage of surgical masks needed to combat coronavirus and that it needed to prioritize the development of a vaccine. But it failed to take action, a top administration health official alleges in a whistleblower complaint formally filed on Tuesday.In other words, he was fired for telling the government facts that it ignored and deliberately concealed at the cost of untold number of lives.
The complaint from Dr. Rick Bright, who led the government’s efforts to find a vaccine for the coronavirus before being reassigned to a position at the National Institutes of Health, details what he describes as a staggering degree of inaction from administration officials bracing for a historic pandemic. Bright, who served as a program leader within the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, says he raised alarms about supply chain shortages early on during the coronavirus’ spread. While certain officials inside the administration shared his fears—most notably, President Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro—others did not.
Eventually, Bright says, he was excluded from a meeting on COVID, even though the agenda for the meeting listed him as a participant. He claims he was ultimately fired for pushing back and speaking out against the administration’s attempts to push an unproven COVID therapy drug.
This has not yet gotten the attention it deserves not because the Washington media is intentionally in Donald Trump's pocket but because in the hierarchy of Washington news coverage, a high health department official just doesn't cut it compared to the top pols in town. In fact, journalism is meant to try to tell you the truth, not the stories the powerful make up to replace the truth. But there is much less momentum in journalism for this historic role than there once was.
