Trump Team Killed Rule Designed To Protect Health Workers From Pandemic Like COVID-19

May 27, 20200

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Health care workers protest hospital understaffing and insufficient personal protective equipment last week outside Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. Ronen Tivony/Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19. That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR.

"If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic," said David Michaels, who was head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017.

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/26/862018484/trump-team-killed-rule-designed-to-protect-health-workers-from-pandemic-like-cov