HHS Whistleblower Claims Health Workers Evacuated Americans from Wuhan Without Training, Protective Gear

A whistleblower from the Department of Health and Human Services has alleged health workers sent to evacuate Americans from Wuhan, China at the start of the coronavirus outbreak did not receive protective gear or proper training.

The whistleblower is a senior official within HHS, received two awards from health secretary Alex Azar in 2019 and has decades of experience, her lawyers told the Washington Post. She is seeking federal protection, alleging she was improperly transferred after raising concerns with superiors over the preparedness of HHS workers sent to Wuhan. According to her complaint, she was told that if she did not accept a new position she would be fired from the agency.

HHS workers were “improperly deployed” and were “not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public health emergency situation,” the complaint reads. The workers were in close contact with passengers from Wuhan on several occasions, including while handing out room keys to passengers upon arrival in the U.S. for quarantine at military bases in California and Texas. Meanwhile, Center for Disease Control teams worked alongside HHS personnel “full gown, gloves and hazmat attire.”

Additionally, personnel from the Administration for Children and Families were sent to two Air Force bases in California to receive quarantined passengers, without receiving proper training or protective gear. One of those bases is in Solano County, where this week the CDC confirmed a case of Wuhan coronavirus with “unknown” origins.

ACF personnel “never should have been without [protective gear],” health secretary Azar said in a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the whistleblower complaint on Thursday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that 8,400 people in the state were being monitored for possible coronavirus infection. 33 people in the state have already tested positive for the illness.