Thread by @wmahoney5

🧵🧵🧵1/Thread on Debra Birx, based on my reading of Scott Atlas book, "A Plague Upon Our House". An insider's look at how badly Trump was betrayed by his advisors. Birx was the LOCKDOWN Queen. She should never be allowed within 100 yards of a government office anywhere. Article I wrote here:

2/Atlas was one of Trump's best hires. And yet, despite his best efforts, he was largely ignored, stonewalled, and had a difficult time getting through to Trump on important pandemic policies that were outside government narratives and propaganda at the time. Yes, propaganda.

3/During his brief tenure, Atlas was a lone voice against Birx's absurd fixation on COVID cases rather than infection rate fatality data as a metric to justify the widespread lockdowns that destroyed the lives of many Americans for almost three straight years. He and many others believe the lockdowns probably did more harm to the American people than the virus itself.

4/Birx on the other hand was bizarrely fixated on cases. It was a major gaslighting operation, IMO. Unless she is really dumb. I think she was ginning up fear, using the wrong metric on purpose. What is more important? Cases or fatalities? Cases or hospitalizations?

5/Don't tell me she didn't know cases meant very little and were certainly not the metric upon which she should base her daily or weekly summaries. It was bullshit. All it did is provoke fear and compliance.

6/Atlas is a neurologist and a Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institute. His expertise in public policy far exceeded others on the task force, including Birx. Atlas served as a dispassionate, apolitical, and objective voice in the White House. His many relationships with respected scientists outside D.C. also served him well.

7/By the time Atlas joined the task force, Birx was well ensconced in her role as the chief purveyor of the truth about the dangers of the SARS-2 coronavirus. While Pence did not hire her, they were undoubtedly close by Atlas' account.

8/Birx is a primadonna by all accounts. Atlas did not immediately attend the task force meetings. Jared Kushner and other presidential advisors advised him to keep his distance from Birx because she was "easily threatened." In fact, he spent several weeks listening in by phone so as not to ruffle her feathers.

9/In mid-August, he was convinced by Trump advisors to join in person, and join he did. "Much had transpired in the 6 months prior" to his arrival, writes Atlas. But "Trump never once attended a COVID Task Force Meeting." Atlas believes that most of Trump's advisors looked the other way because the election was approaching.

10/there were frequent disconnects between Trump and Birx during press conferences. She would contradict him on many issues on national tv. It was a confusing mess because Fauci and Birx constantly contradicted the President's policy decisions, decisions he had every right to promote given his position as Chief Executive. Before Atlas' first task force meeting in mid-August, conversations with a friend in the White House revealed the "task force doctors were fixated on a single-minded view that all cases of COVID must be stopped or millions of Americans would die." This was a goal that was absurd on its face.

11/Jared Kushner was no friend of Trump during this time. Atlas had repeated interactions with advisors and task force members, including Jared Kushner, who was apparently "tired of Atlas' attempts to show him the data and agnostic about the pandemic." Atlas reports there was stubborn resistance from these "unelected bureaucrats" to identifying high-risk people, "including nursing home patients who already lived in a controlled environment."

12/All of the policies emanating from the task force emphasized mass testing of the symptomatic and unsymptomatic alike, widespread masking of a virus that could easily escape a cloth mask, charts from Birx on the rising cases, which were meaningless in terms of sane COVID public health policy, and fear-mongering messaging that repeatedly concluded lockdowns and a vaccine were the only way out. According to Atlas, "PCR and cycle thresholds were never mentioned by Birx." She never recognized that the high thresh holds "produced positive tests that were worse than meaningless."

13/The COVID-19 task force, according to Atlas, "highlight[ed] what we didn't know rather than what we did, and inexplicably ignor[ed] the massive body of acquired evidence and the compendium of knowledge about immunology, including related coronaviruses. And no one mentioned the human cost of lockdowns. Neither did any of the later released Fauci emails."

14/The taskforce had ZERO interest in listening to Trump or enforcing his orders or policies. In fact, it appears taskforce members worked like terrorists 24/7 to sabotage him, whether it was HCQ, Ivermectin, ventilation strategies, using UV light to kill viruses ohmnilabs.com/powerful-disin…

15/Instead, they took his often inept descriptions of what he was hearing from other advisors, and twisted what he said or made him look stupid and then funneled that messaging through the media. It was disgusting. No matter what Trump did or said, they through roadblocks in his way. It was constant and he had many other issues on his plate at the time.

16/With the advice of scientists from around the country, President Trump understood there were treatments for the SARS-2 virus. The President believed masks should be used only when in close proximity and indoors. Atlas writes that Trump was "on record that he wanted to both protect the vulnerable and reopen schools." Trump also wanted the mass lockdowns to end but left those decisions to governors.

17/So while Trump "stressed protecting the high-risk population while opening businesses and allowing healthy Americans to work; [Birx and Fauci] wanted widespread testing and confinement of healthy people with closures of business and significant restrictions on." The contradictory messaging alone, says Atlas, caused undue confusion and harmed the American psyche.

18/The taskforce used fear to manipulate the populace. PERIOD. Fear vanquished reasoning and rational thinking. The MSM was more than happy to carry water for these jackasses. It was criminal. I have never in my life been so frustrated. I knew they were doing this stuff by the end of March, easily.

18/One of the most important issues highlighted in the book was the discussion around the closure of K-12 schools and universities. In August 2020, Birx began to focus much of her travel and messaging on the safety of children and young adults—populations that were by then well-known to be at significant risk for severe illness or death. In chapter 8 of his book, Atlas explains that Birx and sometimes Pence were the only individuals who traveled to meet with governors and university personnel to advise on COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

19/Pence ignored Atlas. During one of these trips, Birx phoned in to speak with the task force to report on her discussions with governors and university leaders. During the call, Atlas sat there in shock over her insistence on testing children and young adults who were asymptomatic. Atlas spoke up, but no one in the meeting supported his data. Pence listened but ultimately ignored the facts presented by Atlas.

20/Birx insisted that campuses were "dangerous," even though anyone who paid attention knew by then that campuses were the best place for young people. Shutting down schools meant those young people would more likely expose their grandparents, who were at high risk, to the virus. Birx actually said these words during a meeting in August, according to Atlas, "We really need to start testing the toilet water from the dorms, the drainage from their sewer systems. Otherwise, we will never find the cases. No one will know what they had." Put that in your pipe and smoke it for just a minute. Unfortunately, no one listened to Atlas's advice

21/Atlas knew that, by then, the data did not support sending kids home or even online classes. According to Atlas. We NEVER heard this from Birx or Fauci. WHY??

"Thousands of cases were reported from campuses across the country. Almost none needed medical care of any kind. Of the first 111,000 cases as defined by [the often flawed] positive tests, zero were hospitalized. Soon over 25k cases of positive tests in mostly asymptomatic students were registered, yet with all of those cases, ZERO hospitalizations and no illnesses requiring significant medical care."

22/in Aug. 2020, this is what Atlas told the taskforce with Pence present. "I pointed to the CDC statistics that only 0.2% of the first 164,280 deaths cataloged by the CDC had been in those under 25 years old. But those 18-29, that risk is 90 times less than for those 65-74 and 630 times less than for those 85 and older.

I noted that hospitalization rates for those 18-29 are very small compared to older age groups. 1/8th of those 75-84 and 1/13th of those over 85. And I spoke about the relevant demographics on campus 90% of full-time students in public colleges are under 25, and 98% are under 34 old club court. A few university faculty members were elderly. Since 2/3 are under 55 and only 13 % are older than 65, the risk to that age group was extremely low, and the campus was one of the lowest-risk environments one could imagine."

23/It was obvious to many early on that Trump had a feel for the truth of the pandemic. He understood the cost of lockdowns and would often speak up in broadcasts. But the press would hijack and weaponize his inability to accurately articulate his thoughts on a given matter. Light therapies, Hydroxychloroquine, and Ivermectin were all effective treatments. Still, every time Trump attempted to project them to the public, the media and the task force would sweep in to contradict him and ridicule his thoughts because of his delivery.

24/Atlas writes that Trump understood all the concepts, excess mortality, and why cases were not a good metric. He states that Trump saved many lives by shutting down travel from China, even when others cried racism and Fauci, and others scoffed at the decision. Trump mobilized an unprecedented, coordinated effort to supply states with hospital beds on ships and in parks and PPE. He mobilized a historic testing apparatus. He increased the protection of Seniors in September, and "COVID mortality rates went down by almost half," according to Atlas. Set aside your thoughts about the mRNA "vaccines," "Warp Speed" delivered them in record time. Monoclonal antibodies and other drugs were developed and marketed in record time.

25/However, President Trump's "actions, and inactions were a massive error. He delegated authority to medically inexperienced bureaucrats and failed to correct his decision." He was the Chief Executive. He disagreed with them and seems to have given up. He probably should have risked political capital and fired some people. Or maybe he should not have been as polite in the press conferences. Birx was a big problem during the pandemic. She is largely responsible for draconian policies based on thin air, cases, and probably her own vindictive nature. I would guess she had no respect for Trump and, therefore, did everything in her power to sabotage him. we do not need politicized figures during national emergencies.