Birx criticized for travels, family visits
WASHINGTON — As COVID19 cases skyrocketed before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, warned Amer- icans to “be vigilant” and limit celebrations to “your immediate household.”
For many Americans that guidance has been difficult to abide, includ- ing for Birx herself.
The day after Thanks- giving, she traveled to one of her vacation properties on Fenwick Island in Delaware. She was accom- panied by three generations of her family from two households. Birx, her husband Paige Reffe, a daughter, son-in-law and two young grandchildren were present.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked Americans not to travel over the holidays and discourages indoor activity involving members of different households. “People who do not currently live in your housing unit, such as college students who are returning home from school for the holidays, should be considered part of differ- ent households.”
Even in Birx’s everyday life, there are challenges meeting that standard. She and her husband have a home in Washington. She also owns a home in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where her elderly parents, and her daughter and family live, and where Birx visits intermittently. In addition, the children’s other grandmother, who is 77, also regularly travels to the Potomac house and returns to her 92-year-old husband near Baltimore.
Birx’s own experiences underline the complexity and difficulty of trying to navigate the perils of the pandemic while balancing a job, family and health, especially among essential workers like her.
Yet some of Birx’s peers in public health say she should be held to a higher standard given her prominent role in the government’s response to the pandemic and the current surge in COVID-19 deaths.
Birx has expressed a desire to maintain a significant role on the White House coronavirus task force when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, sources say.
“To me this disqualifies her from any future government health position,” said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security. “It’s a terrible message for someone in public health to be sending to the American people.”