Dr. Deborah Birx on low death rate in China: The picture is 'fundamentally unrealistic'

(Patria) – Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, has openly challenged China's allegedly low death rate, calling it 'unrealistic'.

Dr. Birx presented a chart at a regular briefing with statistics on the coronavirus death rate, where China is at the very bottom with the lowest percentage.

At the very top is Belgium with a death rate of 45.2%, while the average in the US is 11.24%. In China, the death rate is only 0.33%, which is difficult to understand considering that the virus started spreading precisely from that country.

Dr. Birx emphasized that China had to be more transparent from the very beginning of the infection that grew into a pandemic, given that the virus originated there.

- I included China so you can see how unrealistic this looks. How is it that the highly developed healthcare systems of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy, with excellent doctors, nurses, and equipment, have a death rate of over 20%, even up to 45 in Belgium, which has an extremely competent healthcare system, while China is at 0.33%? Dr. Birx openly asks, suggesting that the real numbers in China are significantly higher.

She also emphasized the importance of transparency in the circumstances of a new disease or pandemic – regarding the origin of the virus, so that every country can take adequate measures in a timely manner.

- There is no excuse for 'not sharing' information. If you are the country where the infection started or originated, you have a moral obligation to the world not only to talk about it but to provide information that is crucial for the rest of the world to respond to the crisis, emphasized Dr. Deborah Birx.