Coronavirus: Responders say US govt gave them baby wipes and paper dust masks while dealing with Wuhan evacuees
Three US responders, who were tasked with receiving US evacuees from China and Japan, have accused the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of not protecting them adequately.
This comes after a whistleblower, employed at the HHS, alleged that the agency did not adequately protect its employees who received the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan. One of the workers told CNN: "There was zero operational security or control. They didn't protect us."
Instead of providing the employees or the first responders with the right protective gear, the agency gave them baby wipes and construction worker-style paper dust masks, a responder tasked with assisting US evacuees told CNN.
After receiving the repatriated Americans, these workers headed to heavily populated places, including gas stations, restaurants, coffee shops and even tourist attractions such as Alcatraz.
"They're spraying down streets with bleach in China," one of the sources told CNN. But "we would go straight from quarantine to Starbucks".
Bringing this to the notice of the supervisor did not help either. In fact, according to an after-action report filed with the HHS, the supervisor dismissed the concerns of one of the workers and was reportedly told: "If you don't feel comfortable, we'll find another job for you."
However, none of the three workers have developed the COVID-19 disease so far. Still, this is dangerous as there is a lot of uncertainty around the new coronavirus, including the information on how it spreads. Researchers are still trying to figure out whether people can contract COVID-19 from those who do not show symptoms of illness."
"We think that at least some people never show infection at all, never show symptoms of the infection, but they can spread the disease to others," Caroline Buckee, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard's school of public health, told CNN.
The earlier claim
The whistleblower had earlier alleged that officials had not received proper training or protective gear while helping at the Travis and March Air Force bases in California.
"I soon began to field panicked calls from my leadership team and deployed staff members expressing concerns with the lack of HHS communication and coordination, staff being sent into quarantined areas without personal protective equipment, training or experience in managing public health emergencies, safety protocols and the potential danger to both themselves and members of the public they come into contact with," the whistleblower, an HHS official, wrote in a letter.
The HHS officials had earlier brushed off the allegations. During a coronavirus hearing on February 27, William Walters, executive director and managing director for Operational Medicine in the Bureau of Medical Services at the State Department, assured that people involved with those evacuations were appropriately equipped and trained.
Another State Department official, Ian Brownlee, showed a photo of HHS workers in full hazmat suits as they dealt with people evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was sealed off in Japan for two weeks.
This week, the HHS told CNN that it has launched an investigation into complaints at both Travis and March Air Force bases in California.
It seems that workers, exposed to evacuees, got lucky and did not catch the virus, according to Dr Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist at NYU's school of medicine. She told CNN: "What you do with those situations is you analyze, and you figure out, okay, how do we do better next time?"