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Dr. Deborah Birx, a leader of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned state and local leaders in a private phone call Wednesday that 11 major cities—including Indianapolis—are seeing increases in the percentage of tests coming back positive for COVID-19 and should take “aggressive” steps to mitigate their outbreaks.
In addition to Indianapolis, the cities she identified were Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
The call was yet another private warning about the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreaks given to local officials but not the public at large. It came less than a week after the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the White House compiled a detailed report showing 18 states were in the “red zone” for coronavirus cases but did not release it publicly.
Increasing test positivity—an indicator that a community does not have an outbreak under control—should be expected in areas that reopened and grew more relaxed about social distancing measures, said Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage. He said the warnings and data from the White House should be made public.
“This is a pandemic. You cannot hide it under the carpet,” he said. “The best way to deal with a crisis or a natural disaster is to be straight with people, to earn their trust and to give the information they need to make decisions for themselves and their communities.”
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb cited a recent rise in the COVID-19 positivity rate in Indiana on Wednesday when he said he would implement a statewide mask-wearing mandate that begins on Monday. Indiana’s 7-day positivity rate was 6.9% as of July 15, up from about 4% in mid-June.
Not only are COVID-19 cases rising in Indiana, but hospitalizations are up. Coronavirus hospitalizations jumped by 66 people, to 869, as of Tuesday—a figure that had plunged since peaking in mid-April but has curved back up since late June, according to the state health department. Indiana’s ICU cases for COVID-19 grew by 61 people, to 328, on Tuesday, up from the low-200s two weeks earlier.
Through Monday, Marion County has seen 13,094 COVID-19 cases, or 22.3% of the state’s total, and 711 deaths, or 26.7% of the state’s total.
In her call, Birx told hundreds of emergency managers and other state and local leaders that they should act quickly to stem the outbreaks. Among her recommendations were to trace the contacts of patients testing positive for COVID-19 in areas where test positivity is going up.
“When you first see that increase in test positivity, that is when to start the mitigation efforts,” she said in a recording obtained by Public Integrity. “I know it may look small and you may say, ‘That only went from 5 to 5-and-a-half [percent], and we’re gonna wait and see what happens.’ If you wait another three or four or even five days, you’ll start to see a dramatic increase in cases.”
Birx said the federal government was seeing encouraging declines in test positivity in places like Phoenix and San Antonio but warned that the outbreak in the Sunbelt was moving north.
“What started out very much as a southern and western epidemic is starting to move up the East Coast into Tennessee, Arkansas, up into Missouri, up across Colorado, and obviously we’re talking about increases now in Baltimore,” she said. “So this is really critical that everybody is following this and making sure they’re being aggressive about mitigation efforts.”
It’s unclear who heard the warnings and was invited to the call, which was hosted by the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and closed to the press. Baltimore and Cleveland were two of the cities Birx warned were facing rising test positivity, but a spokeswoman for the Cleveland mayor’s office, Nancy Kelsey-Carroll, said they did not participate in the call. And Baltimore health department leaders didn’t know about it, agency spokesman Adam Abadir said in an email. That city today announced a mask mandate and new restrictions on indoor dining.
Taylor Schaffer, a spokeswoman for Mayor Joe Hogsett, told IBJ that it hadn’t talked to the White House.
“The White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs hosts many informational conference calls throughout the week, open to state, local, and tribal leaders,” she said in an email. “Our office participates in and monitors these calls. Although it is true that Dr. Birx mentioned Indianapolis on Wednesday’s call, along with a number of other cities, we have had no direct contact from her or any other member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. We will continue to focus on working with [county health director] Dr. Virginia Caine and our state health leaders in examining our local health data.”
Curt Brantingham, a spokesman for the Marion County Public Health Department said the department was focused on local COVID-19 data and trends and was providing guidance and recommendations to help protect the health of residents and visitors. He said the mayor’s July 9 mask mandate was just one measure that was implemented based on the department’s guidance.
Caine and the city are scheduled to give a pandemic update Thursday afternoon.
Birx’s warning came a day after President Donald Trump resumed his televised coronavirus briefings. The president offered a rosier picture of the pandemic than Birx, focusing on examples of improvements in the fight against the virus, such as better treatment with the drug remdesivir.
Her call also came the same day that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that he and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had insisted on greater data transparency in a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Schumer said they would push for legislation to “ensure that COVID-19 data is fully transparent and accessible without any interference from the administration.”
And, on Tuesday, former CDC Director Tom Frieden and colleagues released a list of data points they would like states to publish in real-time, standardized, to give officials and residents better information.
“It’s not just people who are holding office who need to make decisions,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, on a call with reporters. “The more that we can provide information to people to keep themselves and their families safe, the better off we’ll be.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Birx’s warnings, nor did it answer repeated questions over several days from Public Integrity on why it had not made the “red zone” report public.
Birx said on the call that the weekly report had been sent to governors for four weeks. One staffer for a governor said his boss received only the section of the report related to his state, not the entire report.
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Had they used fire hoses to disperse the rioters downtown, this spike might have been ameliorated somewhat, not to mention minimizing property damage. I didn’t say try to hurt anybody, just crank up the water pressure a little at a time until they go away. It’s worked previously.
A win-win situation too obvious for Team Hogsett to comprehend, especially when the team knows the rioters and their acolytes, at least those who vote, to be among his voting base.
Only in Indiana(mostly) this is not a political problem but heath. Hold your vitriol for your next Trump rally.
Great, Bob P., bring out the blatantly racist tactics of the 1960s?!?!? What would your educated guess be as to the percentage of cases precipitated by the very few days of protesters? Maybe 2% in my opinion, if that. Horrible human being.
Those folks in the 1960s weren’t looting, shooting and destroying everything in sight. They were law-abiding, peaceful protesters who didn’t deserve the treatment they got.
Today, most of the protesters are criminals, evidenced by the plywood on every window within 4 blocks of the Circle the past 6 weeks. Big difference.
That’s a great story with no basis in fact.
The poor response to the virus has done FAR more damage to downtown Indianapolis than two nights of riots. Downtown Indianapolis is dead in the water with no convention business and that’s gone for a couple years. There’s no point in fixing up downtown when no one is coming in town to see it. But, that doesn’t fit your narrative, does it?
It’s clear to me that people who care about others will wear masks and people who care about themselves complain to others about wearing masks.
Too little – too late!
Bring in the military!! That way Trump can feel big about beating (literally) on something or someone. Besides that way people will talk about something other than the virus, virus, virus.