U.S. Department of Health and Human Services brass sent more than a dozen workers to meet the first Americans evacuated from the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, without adequate gear to protect them from contracting the deadly illness, a government whistleblower claims in a complaint that came to light Thursday.
The whistleblower, identified as a senior HHS official based in Washington, supervises workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS, The Washington Post reported.
She charged that HHS staff were “improperly deployed” and were “not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public health emergency situation,” according to a complaint obtained by the outlet.
The complaint also charged that unidentified workers could have been exposed to coronavirus because they weren’t protected or trained how to properly wear personal protective equipment even though they were in close contact with the passengers in an airplane hanger.
The whistleblower is now seeking federal protection, saying she was unfairly reassigned after raising concerns about the workers’ safety to top HHS officials including staffers in the office of HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
Her lawyers said she was told on Feb. 19 that if she did not accept the new gig by March 5, she would be canned. The whistleblower has decades of experience in the field, won a pair of HHS department awards from Azar last year, and had received top performance evaluations, her lawyers told the paper.
The complaint was filed on 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 paper, which was also obtained by the New York Times.
“I soon began to field panicked calls from my leadership team and deployed staff members expressing concerns with the lack of H.H.S. 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 wrote, according to The Times.
The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, The Washington Post reported, citing the whistleblower’s complaint.
A spokesman for the office where it was filed said he couldn’t comment on such complaints.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the New York Post, but an HHS spokeswoman told the DC paper they were taking the matter seriously.
“We take all whistleblower complaints very seriously and are providing the complainant all appropriate protections under the Whistleblower Protection Act. We are evaluating the complaint and have nothing further to add at this time,” HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said.
The staff members were sent to Travis Air Force Base and March Air Reserve Base in California and were ordered to enter quarantined areas, The Times reported.
The March Base housed 195 people evacuated from Wuhan for 14 days starting in late January.
Travis housed a number of quarantined people in recent weeks, including some of the roughly 400 Americans on the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship that had been docked in Japan.
President Trump on Wednesday named Vice President Mike Pence to head up the administration’s response effort and serve as point person for making any public announcements on the subject.