The task force is now reduced to weekly closed-door meetings with Vice President Mike Pence. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the government, hasn’t spoken publicly at the White House since April 29. In his last task force news conference, a week earlier, he cautioned that the country must “proceed in a very careful, measured way” to reopen…

“There’s almost a sense coming out of the White House that the pandemic is somehow over,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute at Harvard University. “It’s like the third inning of a baseball game, and we’re down 8-2, and the manager concludes the game is over, says we’ve won, and walks out.”

Fauci told CNN this week that he hadn’t spoken with Trump in two weeks. On Friday, he told CNBC that the task force is continuing with a lower profile and fewer meetings.

“Even though numerically the number of meetings might be less, the activity is still really quite intense,” he told CNBC.