Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House COVID-19 team told Americans to limit Thanksgiving to “your immediate household.”
Yeah, Birx couldn’t follow her own advice. She traveled to a vacation home with three generations of her family the day after Thanksgiving.
Birx’s husband, daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandchildren went with her to a vacation property on Fenwick Island in Delaware.
Birx actually tried to explain her way out of this:
After The Associated Press raised questions about her Thanksgiving weekend travels, Birx acknowledged in a statement that she went to her Delaware property. She declined to be interviewed.She insisted the purpose of the roughly 50-hour visit was to deal with the winterization of the property before a potential sale — something she says she previously hadn’t had time to do because of her busy schedule.“I did not go to Delaware for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving,” Birx said in her statement, adding that her family shared a meal together while in Delaware.
Birx and her family may have found a way around the rule even though the CDC said families must consider college students returning home as members of different households:
Even in Birx’s everyday life, there are challenges meeting that standard. She and her husband have a home in Washington. She also owns a home in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where her elderly parents, and her daughter and family live, and where Birx visits intermittently. In addition, the children’s other grandmother, who is 77, also regularly travels to the Potomac house and returns to her 92-year-old husband near Baltimore.Birx said that everyone on her Delaware trip belongs to her “immediate household,” even as she acknowledged they live in two different homes. She initially called the Potomac home a “3 generation household (formerly 4 generations).” White House officials later said it continues to be a four-generation household, a distinction that would include Birx as part of the home.
EXCUSE ME?! It doesn’t sound like people you regularly go home to at the end of the workday.
Oh, that’s because it doesn’t:
Kathleen Flynn, whose brother is married to Birx’s daughter who lives in the Potomac house, said she brought forward information about Birx’s situation out of concern for her own parents, and acknowledged family friction over the matter.“She cavalierly violated her own guidance,” Flynn said of Birx.Richard Flynn, her father, confirmed details of Birx’s Thanksgiving holiday gathering and visits to the Potomac house, but said he trusted the doctor and believes she’s doing what’s right. He said Birx’s visits to the house have occurred only every few weeks of late.“Dr. Birx is very conscientious and a very good doctor and scientist from everything I can see,” Richard Flynn said during a recent interview.
If these people do not take this outbreak seriously, then why should we? I hope you’re celebrating Christmas with whomever you choose to be around.
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