Dr. Deborah Birx tells investigators up to 40 percent fewer Americans would have died if Trump had supported basic COVID protocols
Up to 295,000 Americans would not have died if Trump and his administration had supported the basic protocols.
On April 3, 2020 Trump chose to make the announcement to the American people that CDC was advising mask-wearing, and during that same press briefing he immediately announced he would not wear a mask.
"It's voluntary and you don't have to do it," Trump declared on national television. Repeatedly stressing the word "voluntary," Trump added, "I don't think I'm going to be doing it."
The New York Times reports Dr. Birx, who is an expert in immunology, vaccine research, and global health, told investigators, “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30 percent less to 40 percent less range."
Asked whether Mr. Trump did everything he should have to counter the pandemic, she said: “No. And I've said that to the White House in general, and I believe I was very clear to the president in specifics of what I needed him to do."
The Times separately today reports 737,526 Americans have died from COVID-19, and more than 45.5 million Americans have been infected.
Millions of Americans may have a condition known as “long Covid.” The Biden administration has said people with the condition could qualify for federal disability protections and benefits, which can include health care, housing and unemployment benefits.
In July, at a White House event celebrating the Americans with Disabilities Act, President Biden promised “to make sure Americans with long Covid who have a disability have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law.”
But with no widely agreed-on method of diagnosing the ailment, those who believe they have long Covid are finding it difficult to qualify under a system that is unfamiliar and already tricky to navigate. Dr. Stephen Martin, a physician and professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said the complex nature of diagnosing long Covid required the coordination of various specialists who also have specific knowledge of the condition. Many are overbooked, he said, with wait lists of more than six months — especially for patients who do not have good health insurance.
“This really hits us in our Achilles’ heel of health care,” Dr. Martin said. “The American health care system really isn’t set up to do this at scale.”
Studies have shown that a significant number of Covid-19 patients continue to seek treatment for a wide range of medical conditions many months after a diagnosis. The American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation estimates that three to 10 million Americans may have long Covid.
