Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right.
Dr. Deborah Birx Says COVID Deaths Could Have Been Avoided: 'Substantially'
Of course. Don't forget who was president. It is what it is.
Former federal health officials who worked with Donald Trump's administration spoke candidly in a new CNN special Sunday, highlighted by Dr. Deborah Birx who said many of the COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented.
Birx, who was Trump's coronavirus task force coordinator, told CNN she believes the initial 100,000 deaths during COVID-19's first surge last spring were understandable, because officials didn't yet fully understand the virus or how to treat it.
"I look at it this way: the first time we have an excuse", Birx, 64, told CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who hosted the COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out special.
"There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge", Birx said. "All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially".
Birx, who recently retired from her post in the U.S. government and joined the George W. Bush Institute as a senior fellow, said that the primary issue with the Trump administration's handing of the virus came down to "messaging".
Not only did Trump, 74, deliberately attempt to downplay the severity of the pandemic in public, but Birx said the former president also pushed back against federal health experts who warned how dangerous COVID-19 was.
Birx has been criticized herself for not speaking out more aggressively against Trump's misinformation about the pandemic.
Former federal health officials who worked with Donald Trump's administration spoke candidly in a new CNN special Sunday, highlighted by Dr. Deborah Birx who said many of the COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented.
