Dr. Birx, Top White House Coronavirus Expert, Praises PA Response

PENNSYLVANIA — One of the nation's top coronavirus experts and the White House response coordinator for the virus had effusive praise for Pennsylvania's coronavirus response during a visit to the state Thursday.

Dr. Deborah Birx, who has appeared beside President Donald Trump during national briefings on the pandemic for months, also met with Gov. Tom Wolf during her visit to Harrisburg. The visit came the same day that Trump visited the state and blasted Wolf's economic restrictions.

"Pennsylvania in the March and April timeframe really worked together, and every Pennsylvanian worked together, to really decrease the number of cases," she said during a short news briefing outside the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. "We really saw great progress in Philadelphia."

She went on to praise the leadership at the county level and the way the state handled a surge in cases in the early summer.

She specifically pointed to some of the Pennsylvania Department of Health's s more controversial policies, including limiting gatherings to fewer than 10 people during the height of the virus in the spring, and the ongoing 25 percent capacity limit on reopening bars and restaurants, saying they've been successful elsewhere as well.

"They did exactly that, or some type of that, and dramatically brought cases down," she said. "So it's no longer theoretic — it actually works."

Birx pointed to a model produced by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia which influenced that policy at both the state and national level. The model analyzes the behavior of the virus is different group settings, and suggested safe reopening thresholds for businesses.

Birx, 64, is a native of Pennsylvania, having grown up in Cumberland County and graduated from Penn State College of Medicine. But in the heart of election season, not everyone was appreciative of Birx's visit.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham said that some Republicans were "irked" at the timing of Birx's visit to the state, and her recent schedule at large, due to how it coincided with Trump's campaign stops here and in other battlegrounds.

"Republicans irked that Dr. Birx is mirroring Pres. Trump’s visits (and undercutting re-opening narrative?) in Minnesota and Wisconsin," she shared on Twitter Thursday.

Republicans irked that Dr. Birx is mirroring Pres. Trump’s visits (and undercutting re-opening narrative?) in Minnesota and Wisconsin. “Birx urges Minnesota to 'buckle down' on COVID-19 before winter” | Star Tribune https://t.co/R6a4vyPqwg
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) September 3, 2020

Trump held his latest campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, on Thursday. He offered a polar opposite viewpoint to Birx's support of Pennsylvania's response.

"You have a governor that has you shut down, and almost all states are open," Trump said during his rally, pointing specifically to the restaurant industry. "You have to open the Commonwealth."

The visits come just as Republicans in the Pennsylvania state legislature made a concerted push to remove Wolf's 25 percent seating capacity rule at restaurants and bars. Legislation is expected to be introduced by state Sen. Pat Stefano that would require the state to ease such restrictions.

Birx's Harrisburg visit came after a stop in Pittsburgh earlier in the day Thursday, where she met with the Allegheny Health Department, local first responders and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.

Pennsylvania's status as a key battleground state remains central to the 2020 election, as both Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are expected to return to Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 to visit the site of the Flight 93 crash. Biden has seen his lead in Pennsylvania shrink in recent weeks of polling, and he now leads by 4.2 points, according to an aggregate of polls from RealClearPolitics.