U.S. Workers Did Not Receive Training, Protective Gear In Assisting Coronavirus Evacuees, HHS Whistleblower Says

Washington Post: U.S. workers without protective gear assisted coronavirus evacuees, HHS whistleblower says
“Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint. The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS. … The complaint was filed Wednesday with the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency. The whistleblower’s lawyers provided a copy of a redacted 24-page complaint to The Washington Post. A spokesman for the Office of the Special Counsel confirmed that it has received the complaint and assigned the case…” (Sun et al., 2/27).

Additional coverage of the whistleblower complaint is available from CNN, New York Times, POLITICO, and USA TODAY.

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