美国疫情“吹哨人”再发预警：“应对不当，凛冬将至！”

当地时间5月14日，被誉为美国疫情“吹哨人”的前政府高级公共卫生官员里克·布莱特（Rick Bright）将出席国会参议院关于疫情应对情况的听证会。

在预先提交的证词中，布莱特发出警告，如果政府对疫情应对不力，美国将迎来“至暗严冬”。

布莱特证词截图

“机会之窗正在关闭。如果我们不能依据科学制定全国性的协同应对措施，我担心疫情将会变得更糟，持续时间更长，甚至导致前所未有的疾病和死亡。”布莱特在证词中写道。

布莱特证词截图

他指出了新冠肺炎今年秋季很可能在美国“卷土重来”，届时在季节性流感和新冠肺炎暴发的双重压力下，美国医疗卫生系统将面临严峻的挑战。“如果没有制定清晰计划并采取我和其他卫生专家建议的措施，2020年将是（美国）现代史上最黑暗的冬天。”

An ousted U.S. health official will warn Congress on Thursday that Americans face their "darkest winter" in decades if the country fails to deploy a coordinated response against the coronavirus pandemic. 

Rick Bright is expected to sound the alarm about inadequate countermeasures when he testifies at a congressional hearing. 

"Our window of opportunity is closing," Bright will tell a House health subcommittee, according to his testimony released Wednesday.

"If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities."

"The undeniable fact is there will be a resurgence of (COVID-19) this fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system."

According to Bright's testimony, "without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history."

此前，布莱特曾在美国生物医学高级研究与开发局担任局长一职。

这一机构是美国卫生与公众服务部下属机构，负责管理和协调疫苗、药物等方面的研究。然而4月22日，布莱特突然被解除局长职务。

布莱特诉讼文件截图 

5月6日，布莱特正式发起吹哨人诉讼，指控特朗普政府对他进行了报复性免职。

布莱特称自己遭到免职，是因为反对将氯喹和羟氯喹广泛用于治疗新冠肺炎。他认为这些药物应对疫情“缺乏科学价值”，拒绝扩大其应用范围。但这些通常用于治疗疟疾的药物，却被特朗普看作是“抗疫神药”，大肆推广。

此外，今年1月布莱特就曾向美国政府发出过新冠疫情预警，并提醒口罩等关键医疗用品可能出现短缺。但他的警告没有被理会，他本人还面对着来自其他政府官员的“敌意和边缘化”。

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint last week after being demoted for what he said was opposition to the Trump administration's promotion of unproven therapies to fight COVID-19. U.S. officials were "dismissive" about his dire warnings early this year about the critical shortage of necessary supplies like masks, swabs and medicine and the lack of appropriate funding.

Bright was removed last month from his post as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the agency charged with developing a vaccine against the coronavirus, and transferred to a lesser position in the National Institutes of Health.

He said he was removed for opposing the use of malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus, a treatment that was repeatedly promoted by President Donald Trump despite little scientific evidence of success. 

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