Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Birx Tells Hill Panel White House Tried To Limit Covid Guidance To States
The New York Times: Deborah Birx Says Trump White House Asked Her To Weaken Covid Guidance
Dr. Deborah L. Birx, President Donald J. Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, told a congressional committee investigating the federal pandemic response that Trump White House officials asked her to change or delete parts of the weekly guidance she sent state and local health officials, in what she described as a consistent effort to stifle information as virus cases surged in the second half of 2020. Dr. Birx, who publicly testified to the panel Thursday morning, also told the committee that Trump White House officials withheld the reports from states during a winter outbreak and refused to publicly release the documents, which featured data on the virus’s spread and recommendations for how to contain it. (Weiland, 6/23)
AP: Birx Describes A White House Divided On COVID Response
A lack of clear, concise and consistent messaging about the seriousness of the novel coronavirus in the earliest months of its spread created a false sense of security among Americans that the pandemic would not be serious and resulted in inaction early on across the federal government. That was the assessment of Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the COVID response coordinator under former President Donald Trump and testified for the first time Thursday before a House panel about her time in the Trump administration. (Freking, 6/23)
The Washington Post: Trump Swayed By ‘Dangerous Ideas’ About Coronavirus, Birx Tells House Panel
“People were communicating with the president dangerous ideas … on a daily basis,” such as encouraging former president Donald Trump to advocate for unproven treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, or providing him with misleading data about the virus, Birx told the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. Asked about Trump’s repeated claims in 2020 that the virus would simply disappear, Birx implied that the president wrongly believed that if enough Americans were infected, the pandemic would go away. (Diamond, 6/23)
Axios: Birx: Trump Officials Underplayed Pandemic, Pushed To Weaken COVID Guidance
"It wasn't just the president — many of our leaders, were using words like 'we could contain,' and you cannot contain a virus that cannot be seen," Birx told the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. "And it wasn't being seen because we weren't testing." (Falconer, 6/24)
PBS NewsHour: WATCH: Former Trump COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx Appears Before House Committee
Former COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx appeared before a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Thursday morning to testify on former President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic. (6/23)
