Dr. Deborah Birx on Tuesday said that medical experts failed to understand the seriousness of the coronavirus because of incomplete data coming out of China.
“I think the medical community interpreted the Chinese data as that this was serious but smaller than anyone expected,” she said. “Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data.”
Birx spoke about the experts’ relationship with the data during a White House press briefing on Tuesday evening.
She acknowledged frankly that when she saw early data from China reporting only 50,000 cases of the virus among the 20 million people in Wuhan, China, and the 80 million in Hubei province, she felt that the threat was similar to that of SARS, which had 8,098 cases globally and 774 deaths.
Appeals court allows Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on gender transition care for minors to be enforced
California governor demands Trump abandon Texas redistricting push, threatens ballot measure response
ICE Ordered to Fix ‘Horrifying’ Conditions at NYC Facility After Migrant Complaints
New Uvalde body camera video captures parents pleading with officers during 70-minute delay
Mamdani pressed on pledge to be Trump’s ‘worst nightmare’ and landlord pushback on rent freeze plan
BLM activist leading resistance to Trump’s DC crime plan repeatedly called for abolishing police
Texas Dems begin to crack, confirm return to state after fleeing to obstruct GOP redistricting: report
Mexico to extradite 26 top cartel leaders to US in Trump administration deal
Trump’s takeover of blue DC met with praise and rage by fed-up residents
As Trump Works to Clean Up DC’s Mess, Here’s What the White House is Doing with the Homeless
National Guard mobilizes in DC for Trump’s police takeover and crime crackdown
Target gunman who killed 4-year-old and her grandfather thought he was Jesus, police say
DC police chief ripped for ‘mind blowing’ response to basic policing question: ‘Yikes’
Musk Has Gone Quiet About the Launch of His ‘America Party’ — Here’s What We Know
Feds unseal charges against ‘Barbecue,’ Haitian gang leader with $5M bounty on his head
The devastation hitting countries like Italy and Spain and South Korea gave the experts much more complete data, helping them draw models that were far more alarming.
“Let’s see if we can do much better than that,” President Donald Trump said during the briefing, pointing to the models predicting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the United States.
Trump noted that the virus was also more contagious than expected.
“I think the one thing that nobody really knew about this virus was how contagious it was,” he said. “It’s so incredibly contagious, and nobody knew that.”
Story cited here.
