Trump had parallel info about virus: Health aide
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WASHINGTON • Dr Deborah Birx, who recently ended her stint with Mr Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, said misinformation abounded in his White House and that the former president had presented "parallel" information about the pandemic.
"I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made. So I know that someone - someone out there or someone inside - was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president," she said in a lengthy interview on CBS's Face The Nation that aired on Sunday.
"I know what I sent up, and I know what was in his hands was different from that," she said.
Dr Birx was often featured by the president's side in the spring, when he did daily, extended press conferences about the US' coronavirus response that often veered off-script. She was in the press room last April when Mr Trump suggested injecting disinfectant to ward off the virus.
Dr Birx described the difficulties of delivering science-based recommendations to the White House, where some people believed the coronavirus was a hoax.
Mr Trump appreciated the gravity of the virus last March, but the White House did not follow her "gated criteria" on lockdowns later, as the country gradually reopened months ahead of the presidential election.
Dr Birx said she believes Dr Scott Atlas, Mr Trump's former adviser on the coronavirus task force, brought in the "parallel data streams", though she does not know who else was part of it.
Dr Atlas won Mr Trump's favour by advocating the loosening of social distancing restrictions during the pandemic.
Dr Birx, 64, who expects to retire within weeks, said she "always" considered quitting Mr Trump's task force as she worried that she would be viewed as a political person.
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