[NFA] The White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx on CBS’s ‘Face The Nation’ Sunday said she is increasingly concerned about a potential new spike in COVID-19 infections after Thanksgiving, as lawmakers continue to stall on legislation that could be crucial to vaccine distribution.
Gavino Garay has more.
Public health officials are growing increasingly concerned about the spread of the coronavirus after millions of Americans defied warnings and gathered in large numbers for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, said she's worried the rate of spread could be similar to what was seen after the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S., but this time, with a far higher number of new daily cases.
DR. BIRX: "We're entering this post-Thanksgiving surge with three, four and 10 times as much disease across the country.
And so that's what worries us the most.
We saw what happened post Memorial Day.
Now we are deeply worried about what could happen post-Thanksgiving because the number of cases, 25,000 versus 180,000 a day, that's where- that's why we are deeply concerned." Dr. Birx told CBS she hoped to brief President-elect Joe Biden on Monday on the latest coronavirus data.
Her comments came before Biden's office on Sunday said he twisted his ankle playing with his dog in Delaware, and would see an orthopedist out of an abundance of caution.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday urged his Republicans colleagues to pass a coronavirus relief measure that includes $30 billion in federal funds he says are needed to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.
SCHUMER: "A successful COVID roll out will require about 30-billion dollars in federal funds to make sure the vaccine gets into peoples' arms. That its distributed appropriately." Legislative negotiations over an economic relief package have been stalled in congress for months.
SCHUMER: "Today we are once again urging leader McConnell to put the HEROES bill on the floor of the Senate.
It has passed the House.
And it has the money that's needed to distribute the vaccines." The U.S. is reporting more than 162,000 new infections on average each day and leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, according to Reuters data.