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.
Christa Pike now conscious and talking after surviving 2 doses of lethal injection drug: report
Delta Air Lines jet clips Air Canada plane on Los Angeles International Airport tarmac
Immediate Impact Seen at CNN HQ as Paramount and Warner Bros. Finalize Controversial Mega Merger
Nebraska’s Dan Osborn says mocking Trump voters ‘came from a place of passion’
ICE Hunting for 2 Illegal Aliens Suspected of Stabbing an NYPD Officer 3 Years After Biden Released Them Into the U.S.
El Sayed creates ‘Mike Rogers is watching you’ website highlighting work on Patriot Act
Russian researcher’s mystery death could be ‘far worse’ than the plague, former senior Trump official warns
Lithuania moves to allow nuclear weapons on its territory, sparking threats of ‘escalation’ from Russia
Liberal justices look for ‘escape hatch’ as high-stakes climate case lands at Supreme Court, experts say
Judge Slams Mamdani’s ‘Arbitrary’ and ‘Capricious’ Tax, Hands New Yorkers Major Legal Victory
Icon Missing from Florida Church for 100 Years Turns Up on a Back Wall in Another Country
Trump turns to emerging tech giant in multi-billion bid to ramp up US submarine production
Trump sparks outrage for suggesting that Iran could ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego
Blue city emerges as ‘suspected hotspot’ of visa fraud as swing state lawmaker demands answers
Peter Navarro seeks Supreme Court review as Trump allies brace for Democratic subpoenas
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.
