UK doesn’t need to stop in-person classes, top White House doctor says
A top White House doctor in charge of the nation’s COVID-19 task force visited the University of Kentucky on Monday and lauded the university for its coordinated handling of positive cases.
Birx, the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, called UK’s plan to test, detect and quarantine or isolate students “incredibly sophisticated.” She said as long as it continues to function in the way it has, and as long as students continue to wear masks, the university shouldn’t need to close before holiday break.
She said it’s “actually more dangerous to universities and communities to have universities close, or create the perception of closure of going to exclusively online, because then you’ll have [more] students distributed throughout the community.”
Birx was in Kentucky as part of a regional tour of colleges and universities to examine their virus response plans. Earlier that morning, she met with local officials and health care professionals. Birx last visited Kentucky in late July, when she met with public health experts and state leaders, including Gov. Andy Beshear and Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack, and recommended the state temporarily close bars and reduce restaurant capacity.
On Monday, Birx said she has “confidence” in UK’s ability to respond to campus outbreaks. “I see that they’re able to keep up with everything that’s happening. If anything, we see the number of active cases continuing to decline.”
The number of new cases at the state’s largest university, though, continues to rise. Over the weekend, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department tallied 200 new COVID-19 cases city-wide, more than a half of which — 106 — were UK students. UK students account for a fifth — 1,332 — of the city’s total cases. UK’s internal coronavirus dashboard showed at least 424 active student cases on Monday.
Birx also lauded mitigation measures taken by Gov. Andy Beshear in recent months, which she said has led to “continued week-over-week improvement” across Kentucky.
By most measures, that assessment is not accurate.
While the overall rate of people testing positive has declined in the last month from close to 6 percent to now hovering around 4 percent, that rate is on the rise again. It had dipped below 4 percent early in the week, but was near 5 percent again on Friday. The number of new cases and deaths from the virus also continue to rise. Three out of the last five weeks have set records for the number of new cases reported. And in three out of the last four weeks, more than 60 new deaths have been announced in a single week — another record.
While Dr. Birx has been consistent in her public-facing message that the virus is serious, President Donald Trump hasn’t. In a recorded interview from February that was released last week, Trump told journalist Bob Woodward that he knew the virus was “deadly stuff,” though he has since repeatedly soft-pedaled its severity in public.
Birx, when asked about this contradiction, said, “I have never downplayed the virus,” nor had she ever been “asked to change my message” in a way that would’ve downplayed it.
“I have been very clear in my discussions to the President [about] the level of severity of this virus,” she said. “I am not going to second-guess what the President has done or has not done. It’s his job and his determination how he talks to the American people.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 3:40 PM.
