Tony's Diary Package — page 283

iI There are constant rumblings of Fauci's firing by President Donald Trump, who excoriates him regularly for committing "a lot of mistakes." In addition, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has drawn the ire and ridicule of lawmakers like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for opining on matters deemed to be beyond his preserve. Most bloodcurdling are the "serious threats" that have been made against him and his family. Fauci's counterpart on the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator, is in a different position. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Birx "the worst" in a closed-door meeting with members of the Trump administration at the end of July. Then during a follow-up appearance on ABC's "This Week" on Aug. 2, Pelosi accused the official of enabling Trump's spread of coronavirus misinformation. These concerns are not unfounded. As the coronavirus has spread from raging fires in scattered epicenters to a national inferno, Birx has hewed much closer to the White House's oftenproblematic pandemic script. For months, she stayed publicly mum in the face of Trump's politicized and patently false claims about the contagion, occasionally gushing about his nuanced appreciation for science. Yet, when Birx finally countered some of Trump's conspiracy theories and half-truths this month, she predictably found herself in his crosshairs. She stated the obvious last week, describing infections as "extraordinarily widespread"throughout the nation. This irked Trump, who accused Birx of taking "the bait" from Pelosi and attacking the administration's response. Birx, a colonel in the Army who serves at the pleasure of the president, highlights the metamorphosis that seemingly competent and objective individuals undergo inside Trump's White House. As David Smith wrote in the Guardian, "Like other White House officials before her, she is said to be sacrificing a hard-won professional reputation at the altar of Trump's vanity." Now, as America enters a new, critical coronavirus phase, Birx finds herself at a fork in the pandemic road. Will she continue to walk the line between truth and the politicized "truth" Trump desires to hear? Or will she opt to clearly put her medical oath over job security? August would be an ideal time for Birx to grow a spine. With the protracted first wave of the virus inching closer to the dreaded fall and with schools now reopening, the country remains all but rudderless in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. After the federal government abdicated its role to helm a coordinated response, 50 states scrambled to cobble together 50 different plans.