WASHINGTON (AP) – When COVID-19 cases were triggered before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, warned Americans to “be vigilant” and limit celebrations to “your immediate home.”
For many Americans, this guide has been difficult to follow, included for the same Birx.
The day after Thanksgiving, he traveled to one of his vacation properties on Fenwick Island in Delaware. He was accompanied by three generations of his two-household family. Birx, her husband Paige Reffe, a daughter, a son-in-law and two grandchildren were present.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked Americans not to travel during the holidays and discourages domestic activity with members from different households. “People who do not currently live in your housing unit, such as college students returning home from school on vacation, should be considered as different families.”
Even in Birx’s daily life, there are challenges that meet this standard. She and her husband have a home in Washington. He also owns a house in the nearby town of Potomac, Maryland, where his elderly parents, daughter and family live, and where Birx visits intermittently. In addition, the other grandmother of the children, who is 77 years old, also travels regularly to the Potomac house and returns to her 92-year-old husband near Baltimore.
Birx’s own experiences underscore the complexity and difficulty of trying to explore the dangers of the pandemic while balancing work, family, and health, especially among essential workers like her.
Still, some of Birx’s public health colleagues say it should stay at a higher level given its prominent role in the government’s response to the pandemic and the current increase in deaths from COVID-19 at all. the country.
Birx has expressed a desire to maintain an important role to the White House coronavirus working group when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next month, according to a person familiar with the deliberations of Biden team staff and an administration coronavirus working group official Trump. Neither was allowed to publicly discuss internal deliberations and both spoke on condition of anonymity.
“For me, this disqualifies her from any future government health position,” said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security. “It’s a terrible message for someone in public health who sends it to the American people.”
After The Associated Press asked questions about the Thanksgiving weekend trips, Birx acknowledged in a statement that he went to his Delaware property. She refused to be interviewed.
He insisted that the purpose of the approximate 50-hour visit was to deal with the wintering of the property before a possible sale, which he says he had not previously had time to do due to his busy schedule.
“I didn’t go to Delaware for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving,” Birx said in his statement, adding that his family shared a meal together while he was in Delaware.
Birx said everyone on his trip to Delaware belongs in his “immediate home,” even while acknowledging that they live in two different homes. Initially, he called the Potomac house a “home of 3 generations (formerly 4 generations)”. White House officials later said it remains a four-generation home, a distinction that would include Birx as part of the home.
Birx’s job makes her an “essential worker” under federal guidelines, in a position that requires extensive travel to consult with state and local officials about the pandemic response. She has traveled to 43 states, driving 25,000 miles, she said, often to coronavirus hotspots. Birx also has an office in the White House, where numerous COVID-19 infections have been revealed.
Through it all, she said she has kept herself and her family safe through isolation, mask use and regular testing.
Birx has not said how long he is isolated before visiting the family. Medical experts say people who only recently became infected often do not test positive. They say wearing a mask has limited effectiveness in an environment like the White House, where few others use them.
Margaret Flynn, the children’s other grandmother, arrives at Potomac’s home to care for the children, and then returns to her husband, who has health complications. Birx said he has not seen the other grandmother since the beginning of the pandemic and does not know how often he visits the Potomac house.
Flynn confirmed that he has not spoken to Birx for months. Flynn refused to say how often he visits the house to care for the grandchildren.
From the White House podium, Birx has talked about how he comes from a multigenerational family with his parents and his daughter’s family, including grandchildren, who all live under one roof. Many saw it as a related family dilemma.
In early April, he said he understood the sacrifices many made and explained that he could not visit Potomac’s house when one of his grandchildren had a high fever.
“I didn’t go,” he said, while standing next to President Donald Trump. “You can’t take that kind of risk.”
Since then, he has resumed his visits to the house.
Numerous elected officials, including prominent Democrats, have been forced to acknowledge that they have failed to heed their own stern warnings to the public about the dangers of the virus spreading.
But Birx occupies a much higher position of authority when it comes to the pandemic. Many Americans rely on the advice she and the government’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have given.
Kathleen Flynn, whose brother is married to Birx’s daughter who lives in the Potomac house, said she presented information about Birx’s situation out of concern for her own parents and acknowledged the family’s friction over the issue.
“He violated his own guide,” Flynn said of Birx.
Richard Flynn, his father, confirmed the details of Birx’s Thanksgiving holiday meeting and visits to the Potomac house, but said he trusted the doctor and believes he is doing the right thing. He said Birx’s visits to the house have only occurred every few weeks.
“Dr. Birx is very conscious and a very good doctor and scientist for all I can see, ”said Richard Flynn in a recent interview.
Medical experts say public health officials like Birx should lead by example, including personal conduct that is beyond reproach.
“We need leadership to be an example, especially when it comes to things that ask average Americans to be much less privileged than they are,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, a global health specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard. Medical School, on high-profile slips in the trial.
Birx came to the White House coronavirus working group with a sterling reputation. A civil servant since the Reagan administration, Birx has served as a U.S. Army physician and as a world-renowned AIDS researcher. She was removed from her position as ambassador as the U.S. global coordinator against AIDS to help the task force in late February.
Birx, however, has faced criticism from public health experts and Democratic lawmakers for not speaking out strongly against Trump when he contradicted the advice of medical and scientific advisers on how to fight the virus.
While he stayed in Trump’s good graces much longer than Fauci, who often contradicted Trump, the president in late summer had also sidelined Birx.
Kathleen Flynn said she urged her brother and sister-in-law not to allow her mother to care, arguing that she put her mother at risk by spending so much time in a home other than her own, while posing a danger to her. to Birx’s elderly parents. . Flynn, who said he has long had a close relationship with his brother, is currently unable to talk to him and has never met Birx.
Flynn said her mother waited about a week after Birx’s thanksgiving trip before returning home to Potomac to provide care for the children.
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University Law School who has known Birx professionally for years, was confident that Birx would take all necessary precautions to minimize the risks on his business trips. thanks. Still, he said it undermined his biggest goal of Americans cooperating with government officials’ efforts to minimize the death and suffering caused by the virus.
“It’s extraordinarily important that coronavirus response leaders model the behavior they recommend to the public,” Gostin said. “We lose faith in our public health officials if they say these are the rules, but they don’t apply to me.”
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Madhani reported from Wilmington, Delaware.