A government vaccine specialist who was moved out of his job last month testified Thursday that the lack of a comprehensive, national strategy to address coronavirus may impede efforts to distribute a future vaccine and is causing current problems such as a lack of testing supplies.

“The window is closing to address this pandemic because we still do not have a standard centralized coordinated plan to take our nation through this response,” Rick Bright said at a House Committee on Energy and Commerce health subcommittee hearing, adding that “I believe we could have done better.”

The testimony Thursday reflects a growing push by Democratic lawmakers to further scrutinize the administration’s response to the pandemic that has killed more than 84,000 people in the U.S. Dr. Bright has garnered attention because he is a prominent administration official who is now publicly criticizing the way the nation’s top health leaders handled the crisis.

Dr. Bright, who was removed in April from his job heading Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barda, filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency, over the decision. He said he was transferred to the National Institutes of Health in retaliation for voicing concerns about the safety of antimalarial drugs that Mr. Trump had touted as a possible treatment.

HHS has disputed Dr. Bright’s characterization of the reasons for his removal as head of Barda, and officials said there already had been plans to remove him following an outside consultant’s reports in 2018 and 2019 on problems with the agency.

Dr. Bright’s testimony on Thursday depicted top leaders at HHS as failing to act aggressively, leading to delays that he said will exacerbate the timeline for economic reopening.

“If we fail to improve our response now based on science, I fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged,” he said, warning that “without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history.”

He said lack of access to a virus, which he sought for his research, hampered faster initiatives on a vaccine, and he said tensions between him and his superiors grew because HHS was pursuing shortcuts rather than fully evaluating safety concerns.

Dr. Bright said it took weeks of pressing before officials surveyed manufacturers about whether they even make masks, and delays and shortages then forced the U.S. to obtain masks from other countries without proper safety overviews.

He told lawmakers that he received an email from a mask supplier that bluntly stated: “‘We’re in deep shit. The world is. And we need to act.’”

“I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response,” he said.

President Trump, who said that he had watched part of Mr. Bright’s testimony, told reporters: “He looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly, according to some people, didn’t do a very good job.”

HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who spoke to reporters alongside Mr. Trump, said Dr. Bright’s allegations “do not hold water.”

“Everything he is complaining about was achieved,” Mr. Azar said.

Michael Caputo, a spokesman at HHS said on Twitter during the hearing: “We look forward to countering chapter and verse of his fictional narrative, just the work of a disgruntled employee the President of the U.S. couldn’t even pick out of a lineup.”

Much of Thursday’s hearing focused on the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Dr. Bright said he resisted pressure from HHS to make the drug widely available because of a lack of evidence that it was helpful in treating Covid-19 and over safety concerns.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R., Texas) pressed Dr. Bright on why he initially supported investments in the drug if he was concerned. Dr. Bright said information about side effects came after those investments, and he said he was directed by HHS to request authorization for use of the drug.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, whose employees worked with Dr. Bright on approving the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19, said in an interview Wednesday that the approval followed science and peer-reviewed studies to guide the process.

A medical study and two federal agencies have since cast doubt on hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness and safety.

Some Republicans criticized Thursday’s hearing as premature.

“This subcommittee has become political sport,” Mr. Burgess said, questioning why the complaint was being probed in a hearing rather than a customary investigation process.

Democrats said they were concerned by Dr. Bright’s assertions.

“I’m tired of those who bear the responsibility accepting none of it while deflecting blame on others,“ said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif). She called the complaint one of the most specific and troubling that she had ever seen.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that Mr. Bright “should no longer be working for our government!”

Federal government whistleblowers are afforded protections under the law, which makes it illegal for an official to be dismissed or demoted for filing a whistleblower complaint.

Last week, the Office of Special Counsel determined there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the ouster of Dr. Bright was retaliatory and recommended he remain in his job until an investigation is complete, his lawyers said. HHS is reviewing the determination.

Published here.