Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak
“Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned. The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. … [Linda] Quick left amid a bitter U.S. trade dispute with China when she learned her federally funded post, officially known as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, would be discontinued as of September, the sources said. The U.S. CDC said it first learned of a ‘cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia’ of unexplained origin in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31…” (Taylor et al., 3/22).

Quartz examines other global and public health positions eliminated by the Trump administration.