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Dr. Birx to Newsmax: US Has Fewer Tools Than Last Winter to Protect Vulnerable
The U.S. has fewer tools now than during last winter’s omicron surge to protect those Americans at greatest risk from coronavirus, Dr. Deborah Birx, White House COVID-19 response coordinator under then-President Donald Trump, told Newsmax on Monday.
Birx was responding to Boston public schools recommending masking again for eight school days following the vacation during the holidays when many people gathered together in large groups.
She stressed to “National Report” that government funds should be invested in educating about the virus and not enacting such measures.
Cloth masks on children in school, for example, will not be effective again variants in any clear way, while the small KN95 masks will protect those vulnerable children, Birx said.
This is the way that children who live in multigenerational households, she noted, can adjust during these surges if they want to protect their family members who are vulnerable.
Birx emphasized that three years into the pandemic “we know precisely when these surges occur” and “what is upsetting is that we haven’t continued to develop the tools to protect the Americans we know who are at the greatest risk.”
Instead, she said, we “have less tools today than we had last winter during the Omicron surge.
Birx explained that early on in a pandemic “when you really don’t understand the virus, you have to be more aggressive when you are not sure how to combat it,” but once tools such as testing are developed than there is a way to keep society open while educating the public to overcome the fears of individuals.
She stressed that “we need to start doing what we need to combat this pandemic and educate people and stop spending money on a new potential pandemic,” adding that it is better to “deal with what we have and figure out how to protect vulnerable people and then we will be ready for the next pandemic.”
Birx said that currently “we are not investing in education or the next tools,” instead, “we have lost tools rather than gaining tools with more durable vaccines.”
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