Dr. Deborah Birx Tuesday defended the daily coronavirus task force briefings, which have come under fire from some over comments made during them by President Donald Trump, saying she views them as an important way to keep the American people up to date.
"I think it's really important that the American people know the federal government is collecting data every day and doing everything they can to respond to this epidemic and then passing on insights across the country," said Birx on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "Each state is seeing something different and has a different best practice, and our job is to ensure that through the governor's call and through those press conferences that we actually are able to communicate key new findings and new insights that governors and states have brought us, and certainly that we see in the data."
Even President Donald Trump voiced doubts about the daily briefings on Saturday, saying that maybe they were “not worth the time and effort." His comment came after he'd on Thursday suggested that medical doctors look into the internal use of disinfectant to fight COVID-19, and on Friday said he was directing words "sarcastically" to reporters. Two briefings were skipped over the weekend.
However, Birx, the task force's response coordinator, on Tuesday said she is a "PowerPoint kind of gal" and she likes to use the time to educate the American people.
"If I have got a graph behind me, I'm extraordinarily happy . . . the more knowledge the American public has about this epidemic, where it is on a county by county dialogue, is really critical," she said. "The more communities know, the more they can protect themselves. So, I'm always happy when we can do graphics and talk to the American people."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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