.
My aim is not to get into an extensive conversation about this, as it appears you (and a few others) continue to view this with a heavy 'partisan'/politicized lens, when it should be clear by now that imposed covid policies (supported by most members of
both establishment U.S. parties) have gone
far beyond any semblance of ethics and essential human rights. One may argue that Birx, at the time, worked with what she believed was an earnest threat, but unfortunately that does not absolve her and her counterparts in the application of hysterical and wrong-headed policy, especially since
it's quite clear policies were an overreach soon after implementation, and all emergency powers and mandates should have been lifted across the board within the first few months of implementation (we now know they should never have been implemented in the first place). This virus is nowhere near as lethal (or even a cause for severe symptoms) as initially advertised for the majority of humans, regardless of vaccination status, and more importantly, the covid 'vaccines' do NOT prevent transmission/spread. Mandates -- all mandates -- were/are unethical and counter to fundamental human rights. They are grotesque, regressive affronts to any semblance of 'democracy'. And yet, even now in 2022, mandates remain in place in certain areas.
Do you dispute any of the above?
Getting back to Birx. Unfortunately, right now, given how politicized this topic has become, most talking points/sources pertaining to critique of Birx will come, naturally, from "Right-leaning" sources. But putting the sources aside, the data/content itself should be assessed, regardless. What are the words coming directly from Birx?
Direct quotes from Birx's book, which you can look up; note how much of the quoted portions rely primarily on "perception"/PR rather than any actual or sound science:
On Monday and Tuesday, while sorting through the CDC data issues, we worked simultaneously to develop the flatten-the-curve guidance I hoped to present to the vice president at week’s end. Getting buy-in on the simple mitigation measures every American could take was just the first step leading to longer and more aggressive interventions. We had to make these palatable to the administration by avoiding the obvious appearance of a full Italian lockdown. At the same time, we needed the measures to be effective at slowing the spread, which meant matching as closely as possible what Italy had done—a tall order. We were playing a game of chess in which the success of each move was predicated on the one before it.
And here, the arbitrary method utilized to arrive at gatherings of "10" persons:
I had settled on ten knowing that even that was too many, but I figured that ten would at least be palatable for most Americans—high enough to allow for most gatherings of immediate family but not enough for large dinner parties and, critically, large weddings, birthday parties, and other mass social events.… Similarly, if I pushed for zero (which was actually what I wanted and what was required), this would have been interpreted as a “lockdown”—the perception we were all working so hard to avoid.
The White House would “encourage,” but the states could “recommend” or, if needed, “mandate.” In short, we were handing governors and their public health officials a template, a state-level permission slip they could use to enact a specific response that was appropriate for the people under their jurisdiction. The fact that the guidelines would be coming from a Republican White House gave political cover to any Republican governors skeptical of federal overreach
[T]he recommendations served as the basis for governors to mandate the flattening-the-curve shutdowns. The White House had handed down guidance, and the governors took that ball and ran with it…With the White House’s “this is serious” message, governors now had “permission” to mount a proportionate response and, one by one, other states followed suit. California was first, doing so on March 18. New York followed on March 20. Illinois, which had declared its own state of emergency on March 9, issued shelter-in-place orders on March 21. Louisiana did so on the twenty-second. In relatively short order by the end of March and the first week of April, there were few holdouts. The circuit-breaking, flattening-the-curve shutdown had begun.
No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it. Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread was a start, but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them. However hard it had been to get the fifteen-day shutdown approved, getting another one would be more difficult by many orders of magnitude.
Other takes, direct from her book, that of course turned out to be flat wrong:
Asymptomatic, presymptomatic, and even mildly symptomatic spread are particularly insidious because, with these, many people don’t know they are infected. They may not take precautions or may not practice good hygiene, and they don’t isolate.
Birx also describes the following points raised by Scott Atlas as "dangerous assertions", which 2 yrs later turned out to be largely, if not all, spot-on:
That schools could open everywhere without any precautions (neither masking nor testing), regardless of the status of the spread in the community.
That children did not transmit the virus.
That children didn’t get ill. That there was no risk to anyone young.
That long Covid-19 was being overplayed.
That heart-damage findings were incidental.
That comorbidities did not play a critical role in communities, especially among teachers.
That merely employing some physical distance overcame the virus’s ill effects.
That masks were overrated and not needed.
That the Coronavirus Task Force had gotten the country into this situation by promoting testing.
That testing falsely increased case counts in the United States in comparison with other countries.
That targeted testing and isolation constituted a lockdown, plain and simple, and weren’t needed.