Inside Trump Administration, Debate Raged Over What to Tell Public

The administration’s response to the coronavirus has repeatedly matched public health experts against a hesitant White House, where worry of panic dominates.

WASHINGTON — After weeks of conflicting signals from the Trump administration about the coronavirus, the government’s top health officials decided late last month that when President Trump returned from a trip to India, they would tell him they had to be more blunt about the dangers of the outbreak.

If he approved, they would level with the public.

But Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, got a day ahead of the plan. At noon on Feb. 25, just as Mr. Trump was boarding Air Force One in New Delhi for his flight home, she told reporters on a conference call that life in the United States was about to change. Continue reading.