White House press secretary Jen Psaki pointedly refused to answer The Post’s questions Tuesday about a spiked October proposal to mass-distribute COVID-19 tests to prevent a winter resurgence of coronavirus cases.
Psaki would not identify which Biden administration officials joined an Oct. 22 Zoom meeting with outside experts who proposed pumping out hundreds of millions of tests before the holidays — nor would she say if President Biden was briefed about the idea before it was passed over.
Vanity Fair reported last month that health experts from Harvard, the Rockefeller Foundation and other groups pitched a plan to mass-distribute tests before Christmas to prevent a winter surge of COVID 19 cases. Three days after the Zoom meeting, they reportedly were told that the idea was dead.
“Which administration officials attended that Oct. 22 meeting?” The Post asked Psaki during her regular briefing. “For example, did Drs. [Anthony] Fauci and [Rochelle] Walensky participate, and was President Biden personally briefed at the time on that recommendation before it was passed over?”
Psaki would not divulge either detail despite The Post pressing her repeatedly. In a rare step, The Post also emailed Psaki the inquiry Monday night and again Tuesday morning so she could track down the answers. A Psaki aide confirmed the White House press office received the email.
Although it’s unclear who attended the Zoom call, Fauci is Biden’s chief medical adviser and the government’s top infectious disease expert. Walensky is director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The two leaders and Biden coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients are fixtures of semi-regular press briefings about the pandemic.
Biden told ABC’s David Muir in a Dec. 22 interview, “I wish I had thought about ordering a half a billion [tests] two months ago, before COVID hit here,” giving the impression he wasn’t briefed on the idea when it was proposed in October.
Biden belatedly adopted a plan to mass distribute at-home tests Dec. 21 as major cities like New York saw hours-long lines at testing centers as retailers sold out of at-home test kits. That initiative only launched this week as the beta version of COVIDtests.gov went live — but processing and shipping times could add another two weeks to the wait as COVID-19 cases begin to drop.
More than 1.35 million US residents tested positive for COVID-19 Jan. 10, according to CDC data — far exceeding last winter’s peak of just 294,000 cases on Jan. 8, 2021. The true case load is believed to be much higher.
In her initial reply Tuesday, Psaki blamed an inability to mass-manufacture COVID-19 tests for the idea not being adopted more rapidly, but sidestepped key questions about the administration participants and whether they briefed Biden before they turned down the suggestion.
“Well, maybe people haven’t asked about it because we’ve done a lot of what was discussed in that meeting that happened a couple of months ago, including massively changing our testing programs and capacity,” she said. “And the issue at the time, which is a very small part of the conversation, was that the market had not expanded enough to at that moment in time be able to launch the website we’re launching tomorrow.
“And the president, you know, used the Defense Production Act, invested $3 billion to expand it, quadrupled the size of our testing capacity, and now we’ve ordered 1 billion doses. So we see that as — our COVID team, the members who participated — saw that as a very constructive meeting, a good meeting, a lot of which we’ve worked to implement.”
Psaki rebuffed two additional requests for information on the meeting attendees and whether Biden — who often likens the pandemic to a wartime effort — was briefed in October on the idea.
“The idea, though, was to mass-distribute tests to homes before Christmas and New Year’s. That idea was not adopted,” The Post pressed. “How can President Biden shut down the virus if he’s not being briefed on these ideas? … Who were the advisers? And was President Biden briefed on this idea at the time?”
Psaki again deflected, choosing to insult rather than answer.
“I think I just answered your question, which you may not have been listening. Maybe you were waiting to read your next question, which is fine,” Psaki said.
“You didn’t, though,” The Post responded. “You didn’t say which advisers or whether President Biden was briefed.”
“I’m finishing!” Psaki shot back. “What I said to you just a minute ago was that we did not have the capacity at the moment. We had a very constructive meeting with this group. We agreed in the need to expand our testing capacity. That’s why we quadrupled the size of our custom capacity and why the president already used the Defense Production Act to invest $3 billion, but the market did not have the capacity, at that moment, to do what we’re doing tomorrow.”
“Yes, I hear what you’re saying, but that’s not the question I asked,” The Post answered. “The question I asked was, which advisers? And was President Biden briefed at the time?”
“Again, I’ve answered your question,” Psaki said. “If you have another one, I’m happy to answer it. Otherwise I’m going to move on.”
Biden previously denied spiking the mass-mailing idea — despite not adopting it when it was initially proposed.
“We didn’t reject it,” Biden told The Post on the White House lawn last month as he departed for Delaware. A White House official later argued that Biden was telling the truth and that “the characterization of ‘rejection’ is not an accurate reflection of a productive meeting, and in fact, we are implementing many measures that were discussed as capacity now allows us to do.”
Most new coronavirus cases are linked to the less-severe but highly contagious Omicron variant, but the huge volume of infections has still stretched hospitals to their limits. About 150,000 US hospital patients currently have COVID-19 — above the pre-Omicron variant record of 133,000 last January.
