Dr. Deborah Birx Steers Away from Doomsday Coronavirus Predictions

Dr. Deborah Birx on Thursday provided encouraging coronavirus numbers suggesting that some of the predictive models were incorrect.

“There’s no model right now, no reality on the ground, where we can see that 60-70 percent of Americans are going to get infected in the next 10-12 weeks,” she said.

Without specifically naming the Imperial College, Birx referred to models that predicted there could be 500,000 coronavirus deaths in the United Kingdom and 2.2 million deaths in the United States.

The scientist of the model revised the estimate of deaths in the United Kingdom to be roughly 20,000 people or fewer.

Birx said that the actual data coming in from other countries were different than some of the direst projections.

She noted that in major countries, there was never an attack rate of over one in 1,000 people.

“The predictions of the models don’t match the reality on the ground in either China, South Korea, or Italy,” she said.

Birx also addressed reports that raised the alarm of New York City hospitals running out of ICU beds, ventilators, and creating Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) policies for patients.

She revealed that she spoke with health officials in New York and that there were still ICU beds and 1,000-2,000 ventilators available, and that there were no DNR policies enacted.

“We don’t have evidence of that right now,” she said.