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Dr.Deborah Birx, who served as theTrump White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, hasmore to shareabout what she was thinking when the former president notoriously suggested possiblyblasting patients with ultraviolet lightor injecting them with disinfectant to treat aCOVID-19 infection.
“I just wanted it to beThe Twilight Zoneand all go away,“Birx told ABC Newson Monday of the headline-grabbing moment during one of Donald Trump’s April 2020 briefings. “I mean, I just — I could just see everything unraveling in that moment.”
“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light …. Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way … It sounds interesting,“the president said.
In an interview timed with the release of her new memoir,Silent Invasion, Birxtold ABC News' Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashtonthat correcting the president would have been the “logical and important thing to do” but admitted she was “paralyzed in that moment because it was so unexpected.”
Speaking withGood Morning America’s George Stephanopouloson Monday, Birx said she quickly told senior White House staff, “This has to be reversed immediately.”
Birx told Stephanopoulos she thought the whole episode was a “tragedy on many levels.”
Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force coordinator, looks on as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at an April briefing.Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“We had spent so much time getting everyone to take the virus seriously, and we had these whole series of actions that were critical to saving American lives in that moment,” she said. “And I could see everything would be unraveled after that moment.”
“I looked down at my feet and wished for two things: something to kick,” Birx writes, “and for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.”
A longtime health official in the federal government who had served under multiple presidents, Birx retired in 2021.
source: people.com
