The buzz about Birx

Birx raised some ire yesterday by claiming models might be wrong.

Retired U.S. Army physician who was appointed to the global
 AIDS Ambassador post by President Barack Obama in 2014.

I’m sure you have seen the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs. This is really quite important. If you remember, that was the report that says there would be 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. They’ve adjusted that number in the U.K. to 20,000. Half a million to 20,000. We are looking at that in great detail to understand that adjustment.

I’m going to say something that is a little bit complicated but do it in a way we can understand it together. In the model, either you have to have a large group of people who a-asymptomatic, who never presented for any test to have the kind of numbers predicted. To get to 60 million people infected, you have to have a large group of asymptomatics.

We have not seen an attack rate over 1 in 1,000. So either we are measuring the iceberg and underneath it, are a large group of people. So we are working hard to get the antibody test and figure out who these people are and do they exist. Or we have the transmission completely wrong.

Basically it feels like anytime someone says that the coronavirus is not the black plague, they are met with anger and resentment. Almost like telling a small child that there is no Santa Claus or trying to convince a religious zealot that everything they read in their holy book might not be true.

Moreover, regardless of the reputation of the task force doctors and experts (many of whom have spent their lives in the medical field studying these things) there are many who simply discount them because they are associated with the bad orange man. As it stands Dr Birx has been studying infectious diseases, vaccines. immunity, and everything having to do with virus spreads for thirty years. Most of the arm chair experts questioning her have about 30 days of experience with their opinions with no actual schooling or expertise.

My Governor  "again" in justifying his Statewide shutdown (complete with 90 days in jail and $1000 fines for people not following the order) made reference to his strong believe that upwards of 80% of Minnesotans will get this infection and that thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Minnesotans could die. I have yet to understand exactly where he is getting these numbers.

But what is clear is that he is not relying on the experts at the CDC.  Why bother to have a Center of Disease Control with all sort of doctors with decades of experience fighting infectious diseases and viruses if we simply ignore them and rely on other medical experts to base our most monumental decisions on?