Dr. Deborah Birx: Take Trump's Virus Guidelines as 'National Rules'

Dr. Deborah Birx speaks at a White House press briefing on March 16. (Evan Vucci/AP)

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Tuesday, 17 March 2020 10:39 AM EDT

President Donald Trump's guidelines to slow the spread of coronavirus over the next 15 days, including warnings against gatherings of more than 10 people, can be read as "national rules," Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House response coordinator, said Tuesday.

"What he is saying is based on all the scientific data that will make a change in how this epidemic is spread," Birx said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "Although it says [it is] presidential guidelines for all Americans, take that as presidential rules for every American."

Governors or mayors have independent decision-making capacities, said Birx, but "this is what we are saying from the national level that will keep the hospitals from having to find more ICU beds, more ventilators."

And, she added, if the older generation can be kept healthy and well, then "our hospitals will not have the concerns" that have been feared.

The White House team is evaluating data every day, leading to changes such as the president's comments about groups of 10 or less, said Birx.

"That's why you see this escalation and guidelines from the president," she said. "Every day he sits with the vice president and goes over all of our scientific evidence. And I have to say, everybody on the team has understood all of the epidemiology very quickly. I mean, it's very much like economic numbers. So it's very straightforward in some ways."

However, there is not yet enough information that would suggest stopping air travel.

"Right now we know exposures are happening at the community level, and that's why we are being very clear and the governors and mayors are being very clear about what it will take," she said.

The nation's millennials are key to controlling the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus, Birx said.

"They make up a large part of our population, particularly in urban areas where we know there will be a potentially greater spread," Birx said. "Also, they are the generation that can help the grandmothers, the grandfathers, the mothers and fathers, to be able to stay in touch with each other virtually."