The White House coronavirus response team’s coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, said Sunday “no state, no metro area will be spared” in the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Birx declared "this is the way pandemics work and that’s why we all are deeply concerned and why we’ve been raising the alert in all metro areas and in all states.”
“No state, no metro area will be spared, and the sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and ensure that they put in full mitigation, at the same time understanding exactly what their hospitals need, then we’ll be able to move forward together and protect the most Americans,” she said.
Birx said the task force wants the country to follow the lead of New York state, which is the virus epicenter.
“We are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now,” she said. “Know where every hospital is: public, private. Know where every one of your surgical centers are. That’s where your anesthesia ventilators are… Know where every piece of equipment is in the state. Know how to move that around the state based on need.
“The one thing that we can do as Americans is we know how to innovate,” she added.
Her advice to New Yorkers was “stay in your metro area where your care can be provided" because if not, "it's spreading virus more quickly around the United States."
“We looked at what New York State and what the mayor and the governor did over the last ten days,” she said. “When those alerts went out of the increased number of infections, a lot of people who could leave New York left New York. And so we immediately saw cases rising out on Long Island and cases rising in southern Florida.’