Birx: Social distancing 'absolutely critical' to fight spread of coronavirus

WASHINGTON — As Americans crowded into beaches and parks over Memorial Day weekend, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, repeated her warnings Sunday that ignoring social distancing guidelines posed a risk in further spreading COVID-19.

"We've learned a lot about this virus, but we now need to translate that learning into real changed behavior,” Birx said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

Birx, who on Friday encouraged Americans to spend time outdoors as long as they wore masks and followed social distancing guidelines — such as remaining 6 feet apart from others — was asked if she made the right call given the images of packed beaches and public spaces that emerged on Saturday.

“I think it's our job as public health officials every day to be informing the public of what puts them at risk, and we have made it clear that there's asymptomatic spread,” Birx said. “That means that people are spreading the virus unknowingly, and this is unusual in the case of respiratory diseases in many cases. So, you don't know who's infected. And so we really want to be clear all the time that social distancing is absolutely critical. And if you can't social distance and you're outside, you must wear a mask. These are items that are really critical to protect individuals.”

Birx told “This Week” co-host Martha Raddatz that federal health officials would use “this period of coming out of the closure” to gauge plans for the fall.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House's coronavirus task force, has said a second wave of coronavirus cases in the fall is “inevitable,” but President Donald Trump on Thursday told reporters he would not move to shut down the country in the face of a new wave.

“We're not going to close the country. We can put out the fires,” Trump told reporters while visiting a ventilator manufacturing plant in Michigan.

Asked if Trump’s approach was the right one to take, Birx said “it’s difficult to tell” and she needed to see further data from states as they continue to reopen.

“I want to be very clear to the American people — we're preparing for that potential fall issue, both in PPE, which is protective devices, both in ventilators, stockpiles and ensuring that we're really pushing on therapeutics and vaccine developments so we can be ready if the virus does come back in a significant way,” Birx said.

Trump, who spent a second day at his namesake golf club in Northern Virginia, tweeted that, “Cases, numbers and deaths are going down all over the Country,” an assertion that was at odds with Birx’s own assessment on Friday that regions throughout the country — including the Washington, D.C., area — continued to see a spike in cases.

Across the country, U.S. flags were lowered to half-staff throughout the weekend to mark the nearly 100,000 U.S. lives lost to COVID-19. The number of U.S. infections has grown to more than 1.6 million Americans, with more than 97,000 deaths as of Sunday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Unemployment rate expected to increase

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” spoke of another grim set of numbers — the unemployment rate — and predicted that unemployment numbers will rise next month before cooling off.

The unemployment rate will be higher in June than May, "but then after that it should start to trend down,” Hassett told CNN’s Dana Bash.

The unemployment rate is likely to reach "north" of 20% in May, he said, and should remain in double digits in November.

Asked about the prospect of a second round of direct payments to Americans, Hassett said: “Depending on the state of the economy, it's something that I guess we would consider. But, right now, it looks like the economy's picking up at a very rapid rate, in which case we could potentially move on to other things that the president has mentioned, like the payroll tax cut and potentially even a capital gains holiday."

Asked about the prospect of more money for state and local governments, Hassett seemed skeptical.

"There's already a lot of money for state and local governments,” Hassett said. “And so what we need to do — and it's what we're doing right now — is run a big data operation, look at how they're spending the money that they have already gotten, project what the shortfall will be, and then talk about it with Democrats and Republicans. And that's where we are right now."

Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, responded on CNN that the issue was "not abstract" and did not require a "data crunch."

"We announced a budget on Friday for the next four months, and we had to cut or defer over $5 billion of expenditures, and this includes potentially laying off educators, firefighters, police, EMS, health care workers. This is not abstract. This is real. It's not a blue state issue. It's an American issue,” Murphy said.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said the United States was moving closer to implementing a ban on incoming travel from Brazil as the country’s COVID-19 deaths continue to soar past 22,000 people.