Birx says covid deaths higher due to inaction
Former Trump adviser draws criticism
WASHINGTON — Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator under President Donald Trump, says most coronavirus deaths in the United States could have been prevented if the Trump administration had acted earlier and more decisively.
Birx makes her comments in the CNN documentary, “Covid War: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out,” with a clip released by the network Saturday. The full documentary will air at 9 p.m. today.
CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta asked Birx how much of a difference she thinks it would have made had the United States “mitigated earlier … paused earlier and actually done it,” referring to extending shutdowns, urging people to wear masks and implementing other steps to slow the spread of the virus.
“I look at it this way: The first time, we have an excuse. There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” Birx told Gupta. “All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”
Since February 2020, almost 550,000 people in the United States have died of the coronavirus. The initial rise in cases last spring was followed by another spike in the summer, then a post-holiday surge over the winter that led to the deadliest month for the country so far, when an average of 3,100 people died each day of covid-19 in January.
Birx has been criticized for not speaking more frequently and more forcefully against Trump.
On Saturday, much as with the other times Birx has spoken out since Trump left office, her comments were met with frustration from Democrats.
“The malicious incompetence that resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former President and his enablers,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted. “And who was one of his enablers? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and wrongfully praised him.”
The CNN documentary will also feature interviews with five other doctors at the center of the coronavirus response, including Anthony Fauci from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Stephen Hahn from the Food and Drug Administration; and Robert Redfield from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.