Former White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx has admitted that she knew COVID-19 vaccines would not prevent infection.
During the administration of President Joe Biden, intense pressure has been put on individuals to be vaccinated against the coronavirus on the grounds that they were group responsible for spreading the virus — a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” as Biden has put it.
That philosophy underpinned vaccine mandates supported by the Biden administration that upended employers and the military.
Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under former President Donald Trump, said faith that the vaccines created a wall of protection was misplaced – and she knew it.
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While she still pushed the vaccines as a measure of protection against severe illness, she told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Friday’s “Your World” that vaccines are not perfect protection. The statement came when Cavuto asked Birx how unvaccinated Americans should feel after news that Biden — the chief promoter of vaccines — had become infected himself.
“I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection,” she told Cavuto.
“And I think we overplayed the vaccines, and it made people then worry that it’s not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization,” she said.
Where were you when you found out that the real people pushing vaccine disinformation were Fauci and Birx? https://t.co/8P7OfdC8js
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) July 24, 2022
Although noting that the vaccine does confer some protection from the virus, she added: “Let’s be very clear: 50 percent of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older, vaccinated.”
I feel like Deborah Birx admitting she lied about the vaccines, sitting idly by while people had their lives destroyed by mandates she knew were pointless, should be a bigger deal.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) July 23, 2022
Birx is now backing a policy of testing and treatment, citing Paxlovid, the drug given to Biden last week after he tested positive for COVID-19.
“So that’s why I’m saying even if you’re vaccinated and boosted, if you’re unvaccinated right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid. It’s effective. It’s a great antiviral,” Birx told Cavuto.
“And really, that is what’s going to save your lives right now if you’re over 70, which if you look at the hospitalizations, hospitalizations are rising steadily with new admissions, particularly in those over 70,” she said.
Incredibly, Deborah Birx recently admitted that she always knew the vaccines wouldn’t stop infection (and thus transmission) and that public health overplayed the vaccines. How about some apologies to the tens of thousands of Americans who lost their jobs bc of vaccine mandates?
— Jenin Younes (@Leftylockdowns1) July 24, 2022
Birx cited one region for which she has a great concern.
“And so if you live in the South – I know people keep talking about the fall – I’m worried about the South,” she said.
Biden had been among the loudest voices pushing the claim that the vaccine would prevent transmission.
What’s incredible about Birx saying she knew the vaccines wouldn’t protect against infection and that they were “overplayed” is that she never thought it necessary to speak out against mandates she apparently knew were indefensible and based on misrepresentations from Fauci & CDC https://t.co/depkVaIGnV
— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) July 23, 2022
“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said in December, according to PolitiFact. “The unvaccinated. Not the vaccinated, the unvaccinated. That’s the problem. Everybody talks about freedom and not to have a shot or have a test. Well guess what? How about patriotism? How about making sure that you’re vaccinated, so you do not spread the disease to anyone else.”
PolitiFact ruled that claim as “Mostly False.”
Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard, said Biden’s “statement is not accurate,” according to PolitiFact.
“We knew that vaccinated people could become infected with delta and shed viable virus in large amounts,” Hanage said.
Brooke Nichols, a health economist and infectious disease mathematical modeler at Boston University, said “vaccinated individuals can definitely infect other people. There is enough data to support this.”
“While vaccinated individuals may be less infectious and infectious for a shorter duration of time they are by no means a dead-end host,” Nichols said, according to PolitiFact.
“When calling it a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ though, it makes it sound as those vaccinated individuals aren’t substantially contributing to new cases — which they are [particularly now].”
