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.
US military kills three ‘narco-terrorists’ in latest lethal strike on vessel in the Eastern Pacific
Judge orders ICE to free Wisconsin mosque leader over ‘substantial’ free speech claim after criticizing Israel
Illegal Alien Who Raped the Body of a Dead Man for 30 Minutes on NYC Subway Learns His Fate
Top GOP lawmaker rallies around conservative school board member facing calls to resign
Comedian Carlos Mencia Facing Criminal Charges in LA, District Attorney Announces
Rutte urges NATO countries to take advantage of Ukrainian ‘window of opportunity’
Obama Center’s opening ceremony ridiculed for far-left ritual before star-studded show
WATCH: Dem candidate grilled on stock trading after being duped with selfie request
Video: 2 Black Teens Rob White Kids’ Lemonade Stand at Gunpoint… as Race-Baiters Demand ‘Justice’ for So-Called White Oppression
Read It: The Spiteful 3-Word Tweet That Cost California Liberals Up to $100 Billion and Elon Musk
Dems raked in millions from employees at firms newly identified as ‘Chinese military companies’
Why George W Bush handed Altoids to Michelle Obama at her husband’s presidential center opening
Obama knocks Founders at presidential center debut before America’s 250th: ‘Fell terribly short’
‘American flag blue’ coating apparently peeling off in Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Planned Parenthood offered hormones but had no answers when detransitioner sought help, undercover probe finds
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.
