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.
Iranian sleeper cells may be hiding ‘in plain sight’ waiting to target rural US areas, terrorism expert warns
Camp flooding puts parents on edge as tragedy shows danger of sending kids away for summer
Why Trump’s undeniable winning streak is drawing a barrage of negative coverage
Family-owned Texas restaurant works to feed first responders: ‘We’re thankful for them’
Illegal immigrant killer of Laken Riley wins unexpected court victory for mental evaluation
Andrew Yang ‘in touch’ with Musk over America Party: ‘Happy to help’
Elon Musk connects with indie Andrew Yang on billionaire former Trump ally’s third party push
Israeli prime minister answers whether he is worried about being jailed in NYC by Zohran Mamdani
Federal judge pauses Trump administration’s Planned Parenthood defunding measure
Netanyahu surprises Trump with formal Nobel Peace Prize nomination during historic White House meeting
Navy’s carrier fleet faces temporary reduction through 2027 as new ships hit development snags
‘A Depraved Lie’: White House Fires Back After Schumer, Dems Push Disgusting Smears
NYC’s Campaign Finance Board Is Tipping the Scales in Favor of Mamdani in a Big Way
Some wealthy New York elites surprisingly back NYC socialist candidate who wants to tax them more
Suspect in Border Patrol Ambush Identified – Strange Writing Found on His Car
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.
