The travel part makes sense to me: as HN is pro-remote-work they should understand that these researchers can simply make their presentations via tele-attendance. The rest of the "refrain from releasing anything until a Presidential appointee can look at it first" seems very commissar-like. The HHS screwed the pooch on COVID, making a lot of nonsensical claims that ruined the reputation of public health in the population's eyes. I still don't like the idea of the Commissar reviewing every paper on bird-flu (our newest epidemic) but I can see the motivation.
The actual presentations are usually the least important part of a conference. Most conferences would be better if you could cancel 80% of the program but still convince the same people to attend (and their employers to pay). Then there would be more time for informal discussions and ad hoc work, which often lead to new ideas and new collaborations.
Tele-attendance basically does not work for science conferences, as 99% of the value is from ad hoc in person discussions. When I attend science conferences I attend few if any of the talks, and instead network to form collaborations for future projects.
In medical research there is an awful lot of tissue, blood and other samples that go into the NIH's work. They run numerous labs and biobanks and a part of what they do is transit samples and the personal and sometimes equipment to various labs across the country.
Certainly, and in Silicon Valley there is hardware, semiconductors, and other tangible items that go into work. But clearly that's not what we're discussing since the article says:
> Today, the scientist encountered one group of early-career researchers who were scheduled to attend and present at a distant conference next week—presentations that are now impossible.
What's the big deal? Present via Zoom. We should probably cancel all conference travel.
