Birx’s post-Thanksgiving visit with family broke her own rules

WASHINGTON — White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx is the latest public official caught violating her own advice as she spent part of Thanksgiving weekend with her extended family.

Before Thanksgiving, Birx told the public to “vigilant” and limit Thanksgiving gatherings to one’s immediate households. But on Sunday the Associated Press reported Birx visited a vacation property on Fenwick Island in Delaware with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren — two households — on the day after Thanksgiving.

In a statement to AP, Birx said that the purpose of the trip was not a Thanksgiving visit, but to winterize the house ahead of a possible sale. Since she and her husband share one of her two homes with a daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, she considered the weekend limited to “immediate household” — even though she does not live in the second home in Potomac, Maryland.

Her son-in-law’s sister, Kathleen Flynn, brought forward the information because, she said, she feared her mother might contract the virus after babysitting for their mutual grandchildren in the Potomac home, which Birx occasionally visits.

Flynn’s father Richard told AP he trusted Birx to do what is right.

Caught violating rules

Birx’ story doesn’t exactly match the infamous lunch at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, that put Gov. Gavin Newsom in hot water. Newsom had dined without wearing a mask indoors with two dozen people, some of them lobbyists, who were not socially distanced as he flouted his own strictures among restaurant staff and customers.

After he was caught and photos were released, Newsom, a Democrat, admitted he had made “a bad mistake.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed dined at the same Napa Valley restaurant three days before she banned indoor dining in San Francisco.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo recently was spotted attending a wine party days after she told Rhode Islanders to avoid nonessential public activities. The Democrat reportedly wore a mask when she was not drinking wine.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler released a video in which he warned city residents he might have to boost COVID restrictions if they don’t follow lock-down rules. “We need to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax,” he said — from Cabo San Lucas.

Hours after she voted to ban outdoor dining, Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl was seen eating al fresco in nearby Santa Monica.

In August, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak took heat when he was videotaped dining at Pizzeria Monzu feet from a singer and three-piece band in what some took as a violation of a ban on live entertainment and performances. Sisolak maintained that the ban did not apply to ambient background music.

Credibility problem

What’s the public to think when leaders break their own COVID rules?

“It is astonishing to me that Dr. Birx thinks a multi-generational Thanksgiving gathering is okay for her — even after publicly urging Americans not to do this — because the trip wasn’t primarily for Thanksgiving. This is a reckless betrayal of public trust,” Georgetown University virologist Angela Rasmussen tweeted.

Stanford Medical School professor Jay Bhattacharya, an author of the Great Barrington Declaration that calls for an end to lock-down mandates, told the Review-Journal, “I think her advice about the pandemic has been misguided, but this is not the line to attack her on.”

Bhattacharya denounced the tendency to “invent a sense of shame over normal human behaviors,” adding, “these mandates are not the way to get people to do things that you want them to do.” The better course, he said, is “giving people good information and trusting them to do the right thing.”

But bioethicist Art Caplan, Professor of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, said there is a nuance to what Birx did.

“I don’t think her behavior is quite on the par with the French Laundry behavior or showing up at rallies with masks,” Caplan said. “But still, she’s a role model. And people were saying that family gatherings were dangerous and you want to be good role model about that.”

Caplan said he fears people will read about Birx’s decision and wonder why they can’t do the same: “They’re gonna say she got to visit the family. Me, too. Where’s the airport?”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.