“Biden was elected president, in large part, based on a message of ‘I’m competent, I’m capable, I will tell you the truth and I will get a handle on Covid in a way my predecessor could not and refused to do,’ and that continues to be the No. 1 issue for most people,” said Kathleen Sebelius, who served as Health and Human Services secretary in the Obama administration.

While praising the administration for quickly being able to make the vaccines widely available, she said that Americans’ “lives are still pretty chaotic and kind of messy and when they thought they were getting out of this they are back in it.”…

“In terms of the communication and the trust in the CDC, it feels like we have gone backwards,” said Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner.

Wen said some of the decisions and the fallout reminded her of the early days of the pandemic response under the Trump administration.