China was 'not truthful' about initial coronavirus outbreak, ex-FDA boss Gottlieb says

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Former Food and Drug Administration [FDA] Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday he believes China was "not truthful" about the initial outbreak of the coronavirus.

"Had they been more truthful with the world, which would have enabled them to be more truthful with themselves, they might have actually been able to contain this entirely," he told CBS News’ "Face the Nation." "There is some growing evidence to suggest that as late as January 20, they were still saying that there was no human-to-human transmission and the [World Health Organization] is validating those claims on January 14, sort of enabling the obfuscation from China."

Gottlieb, a physician and former conservative pundit, added, "Going forward, the WHO needs to commit to an after-action report that specifically examines what China did or didn't tell the world and how that stymied the global response to this."

CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

On New Year’s Eve, China informed the WHO of a "mysterious pneumonia outbreak" spreading through Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million.

The government closed a seafood market at the center of the outbreak, moved all patients with the virus to a specially designated hospital and collected test samples to send to government laboratories. Doctors were told to stay quiet; one who issued a warning online was punished. He later died of the virus.

Gottlieb said it’s too soon for America to return to the old normal.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he believes China was “not truthful” about the initial outbreak of the coronavirus. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid, File)

"We're not going to have the testing in place. We're not going to have the public health employees hired to do the effective contact tracing," he said.

"Contact tracing is sort of the bread and butter of public health work," he added. "We do this when we have outbreaks of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis or measles, where when you identify people who have an infection, you want to identify people who they were in contact with, isolate them and get them tested as well. That's how you can control outbreaks."

He said responsibility rested on states doing more for its people. "The feds are going to have a hard time pulsing their resources in the throes of this crisis. So, I think it's going to be up to the states, and a lot of it's going to be on the governors."

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Gottlieb stepped down in March 2019 after nearly two years leading the agency's response to a host of public health challenges, including the opioid epidemic, rising drug prices and underage vaping.

He served in the FDA under former President George W. Bush and then spent nearly a decade as a conservative commentator at the American Enterprise Institute, while also working as a venture capitalist and industry consultant.