Obama’s Ebola Point Man: Trump’s Got a Coronavirus Credibility Problem
Leslie Dach ran HHS’s response to the Ebola outbreak. There are real lessons to learn from that experience, he says. But Trump hasn’t heeded them.
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Alamy
In the early spring of 2014, the World Health Organization declared that the Ebola virus it had first detected in rural regions of southeastern Guinea had become an outbreak. Over the subsequent weeks, the virus spread to other countries in West Africa and, from there, sparked global panic that would have dramatic socioeconomic ripple effects.
At the White House, President Barack Obama assembled a team to manage the fallout. The main point person was Ron Klain, who had served previously as the vice president’s chief of staff and who was tasked with running the interagency process.
But at the Department of Health and Human Services, it was Leslie Dach, the senior counselor, who was given the task of coordinating the Ebola response. Over the subsequent months, Dach held daily meetings with the agencies inside HHS. He led the communications and intergovernmental teams, met regularly with Obama, and was point person at HHS for the National Security Council.