A private warning about the surge in coronavirus cases made to leaders in 11 cities by Dr. Deborah Birx, a White House official, is the latest sign that the Trump administration must end the secrecy surrounding its response to the pandemic, a journalistic investigation group said on Wednesday.
In an exclusive report on the Birx phone call Wednesday to city officials, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) revealed that Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St. Louis have All been identified this week as cities where immediate and “aggressive” action is needed to mitigate their coronavirus outbreaks.
All cities are seeing increases in coronavirus test positivity rates. Birx told officials that as soon as a slight increase in positivity rates is detected, city leaders should begin mitigation efforts, such as contact tracing, closing restaurants, and urging residents to wear masks. .
“If you wait another three or four or even five days, you will begin to see a dramatic increase in cases,” Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in the call.
According to researchers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville’s positivity rate has already increased for several weeks.
Public health experts identified Birx’s private call, which was closed to the press, as the latest evidence that the White House maintains key information about the public pandemic, a trend that could continue to weaken the nation’s ability to mitigate the spread of Covid -19.
“This is a pandemic. You can’t hide under the rug,” Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage told the CPI. “The best way to deal with a crisis or natural disaster is to be honest with people, earn their trust, and give the information they need to make decisions for themselves and their communities.”
The call came less than a week after CPI reported on a list of 18 states that the White House had privately identified as part of the pandemic’s “red zone”, meaning that each had more than 100 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people in the last week. .
Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Institute of Global Health, wondered why information on “red zone” states is not released to the public on a regular basis, allowing people to make decisions about how much of contact they have with others during cases. they’re going up
“Just because it’s not public doesn’t make sense to me,” Jha told CPI. “Why are we hiding this information from the American people?”
Neil Ralston, a journalism professor in St. Louis, also asked on Twitter why the White House would want to keep secret the need for aggressive action in his city.
CPI reported that while hundreds of emergency managers and political leaders from the states and cities in question were on the call, the Baltimore health department was not informed of the call. In order to obtain vital public health information immediately for the public, an epidemiologist told the CPI that the White House must go beyond communicating with elected officials.
“It is not just people in public office who need to make decisions,” said Caitlin Rivers of Johns Hopkins University. “The more we can provide information to people to keep themselves and their families safe, the better off we will be.”
