Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services stand in line to enter the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building in Washington, D.C., on April 1 as widespread layoffs began at the agency.

Fired employees of the Department of Health and Human Services take personal belongings with them as they leave the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building in Washington, D.C., on April 1.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., shakes hands with President Donald Trump after a swearing-in ceremony at the White House on Feb. 13.

On Tuesday morning, scores of federal workers lined up outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. The impediment to entry: The swipe cards many of them used to access the building were no longer working, because they had been laid off.

If this is the chaotic and cruel way the new leaders of our nation’s health care infrastructure handle a reduction in force, we shudder to think how they’ll manage the next health care crisis — whether it’s on the scale of COVID-19 or a more localized E. coli........

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