Those protesting stay-at-home orders are endangering the lives of not only themselves but our elderly and vulnerable population – something a protester might "regret" for the rest of their live, according to Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force.
"It's devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and they infect their grandmother or grandfather, who has a co-morbid condition, and they have a serious or very unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives," Birx told "Fox News Sunday."
"So we need to protect each other at the same time as we're voicing our discontent."
Birx was asked a series of questions by host Chris Wallace about the expedited opening of businesses in less-infected areas, but she contended the virus is attacking different parts of the country – and different populations – in differing ways.
"We are encouraged that the New York and New Jersey metro areas are starting to see a decline after a long flat curve," Birx said, pointing to the most heavily infected area of the world, not only the country.
Ostensibly, outside of social distancing and adhering to the White House task force Reopening America Again guidelines, there is no one-size fits all response for America.
"If it's done with social distancing, then yes" resuming activity can be safe, she told Wallace. "If it's done without social distancing, then no."
Birx stressed states, officials, and doctors need to "over-communicate" so we can study COVID-19 while we react to it, and treat it.
We should learn from China's failure to communicate early on, she concluded.
"That didn't happen, that didn't happen until late, and you know it didn't happen until mid-January that they even talked about human-to-human transmission," Birx said. "When you see how many countries now that are infected that did fan the virus across the globe."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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