OUTSIDE IN — A now-familiar cast of pandemic pundits has spent the past two years on our television screens and social media feeds, guiding us on how to navigate Covid. We look to them for impartial, science-backed answers about what's safe and what isn't during a pandemic that has killed nearly 1 million Americans. One of these pundits, Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, is joining the Biden administration in April as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator. His elevation has raised questions among some of his fellow public health experts about how these pandemic pundits straddle the line between neutral expert and official government representative, Walid F. Gellad, a health policy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, told Nightly. And these blurred lines, he said, may be contributing to the public sense that pandemic policymaking is just an extension of partisan politics. Political and public health Twitter lit up with praise for Jha last week, and the White House touted him as an effective communicator. Other public health experts criticized the choice, suggesting Jha has used his platform to share White House talking points. Gellad was one of them. "Everybody has looked to Ashish as the calm wisdom about what we should be doing. OK, but do they also know that he's getting memos from the administration about what their plans are? Now he's going to work for the administration," he said in an interview. "When you push certain points of view in the media and on TV, that's obviously going to influence what the public feels. There are deep divisions in society about what the administration has done, and so it matters greatly what independent public experts say about it." When Gellad says "memos," he's referring to a list of people, including public health experts, who regularly receive updates and announcements from the White House communications team. This list, which includes Jha, was confirmed by a White House official, who also said Jha never coordinated his statements with the Biden administration. Even without an official title, Jha has worked with the White House alongside dozens of other public health experts, to help craft the administration's pandemic preparedness plan. He was a part of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's off-the-record discussions with public health experts who have large Twitter followings, some of whom became more vocal in their criticisms of Biden administration policy during Omicron, POLITICO's West Wing Playbook reported in December. Playbook noted that the White House maintained close ties with Jha. "The issue is, if there are individuals trying to keep good relationships with the administration, trying to stay in these private meetings," Gellad said. "I think that's probably what the public does not realize, that if someone goes on TV and starts talking about how the administration is doing a terrible job regularly, they're probably not going to be invited to these meetings anymore." Gellad pointed to a few examples of when he found the timing of Jha's pandemic punditry a bit suspect. Jha wrote an opinion column for The New York Times last month, praising the CDC's move to relax masking guidelines. The article was published the same day the agency announced the new guidelines. And in December, when the CDC reduced the Covid isolation period to five days — a move widely criticized by public health experts — Jha said it was "terrific" and "exactly what the country needs right now." Nightly contacted the CDC about the timing of Jha's statements. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it releases policy ahead of time to outside public health experts. "It was a working hypothesis among the public health experts that I've been talking to, that his messaging on TV, and through his tweets was really kind of an audition for the Biden White House," Philip Rocco, a political scientist at Marquette University, told Nightly. It's a normal practice for businesses and governments to look to social media "influencers" to guide their messaging. But this becomes more dangerous, Gellad said, when public health is involved. "This is all part of the same issue, of the politicization of public health," Gellad said. "And the problem with that is one of the major things you need in public health with a major epidemic is trust. Anything you do that reduces that trust is a big problem." Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard.
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