In his written opening statement, Bright paints a gloomy picture unless the Trump administration responds more quickly and more strongly to the coronavirus.

“It is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been,” Bright says. “We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook.”

Bright warns, “Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”

“The undeniable fact is there will be a resurgence of the COVID-19 this fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system,” he says. “Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.”