Deborah Birx, who coordinated the White House coronavirus task force under former US president Donald Trump, believes the death toll in the US would have been substantially lower if the government had responded more effectively to COVID-19.
In an interview with CNN, parts of which were released before broadcast late on Sunday, Birx said that there was an “excuse” for the initial surge of deaths last year as the US government grappled with the start of the pandemic.
“There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” Birx said. “All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”
Photo: AP
As of yesterday there had been 30,262,380 COVID-19 cases recorded in the US, with 549,335 deaths, according to John Hopkins University data.
Trump downplayed the pandemic in its early stages, resisted mitigation efforts and criticized harsh lockdown measures imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. He repeatedly eschewed guidance on wearing a mask, which health experts say prevents the spread of the disease.
Birx, who has since left the government, said in the interview that she received a “very uncomfortable” call from Trump after describing how widespread COVID-19 was in an interview with CNN in August last year, during which she told people living in rural areas that they were not immune.
Trump, who tested positive for and then recovered from COVID-19 in October last year, was running for re-election at the time.
“Everybody in the White House was upset with that interview and the clarity that I brought about the epidemic,” Birx said. “I got called by the president. It was very uncomfortable, very direct and very difficult to hear.”
Birx at times faced criticism for not standing up more forcefully in public to Trump’s misinformation about the pandemic, including his dangerous suggestion that Americans could consume bleach to kill the coronavirus.
Trump went on to hold large rallies in the final months of the presidential election campaign, despite public health guidance warning against large gatherings.
He lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden, who campaigned largely on a promise to take the pandemic more seriously than his opponent.
Birx became sidelined in the final months of Trump’s administration and White House briefings about the pandemic largely ceased.
She was not offered a position in Biden’s White House and now works in the private sector.
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