Dr. Birx violated her own travel guidelines because her family was depressed—but didn’t afford Americans the same excuse

Birx complained that the public and the press took issue with her having traveled along with her family to a vacation home over. In her defense, she said that her family has been isolated and depressed.

December 22, 2020

"This experience has been a bit overwhelming, it's been very difficult on my family, I think what was done in the last week to my family. Y'know they didn't choose this for me, they've tried to be supportive.

"But to drag my family into this... My daughter hasn't left that house in 10 months, my parents have been isolated for 10 months. They've become deeply depressed, as I'm sure many elderly have as they've not been able to see their sons, their granddaughters. My parents haven't seen their surviving son in over a year. These are all very difficult things."

Birx defended her own choices to be with family and to travel because of her personal concerns for their well being. That this is the case for many Americans who have been suffering the effects of isolation and depression, and that all of them needed a break at Thanksgiving, yet she told them taking a break would not be acceptable.

Birx said that her parents had even "stopped eating and drinking." Many Americans have also had to make the tough call between seeing to the mental health of their loved ones, though it may put their physical health at risk.

In response to initial media reports of her holiday travels, she had said that she, her husband Paige Reffe, also a daughter and her husband, as well as their two grandchildren, made the trip to check on the property and prep it for winter, not "for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving."

Yet, Birx had distinctly asked Americans to keep their celebrations to their "immediate household," saying "I don't like it to be any number" on CNN's New Day.

"Because you know, if you say it can be 10, and it's eight people from four different families, then that probably is not the same degree of safe as 10 people from your immediate household."

Her feeling was that Americans all had to make sacrifices to stay home and not gather at Thanksgiving. She didn't afford Americans the good sense that she clearly believed herself to have, nor did she assume that the public could reason for themselves what kind of risk was acceptable for themselves, as she did.

"I'm making the personal sacrifices not to infect my parents and my pregnant daughter, and there's a lot of people out there who know how to protect one another, and we just need to make sure we're all doing that," Birx said at the time.

Birx is no different from millions of Americans who have endeavored to find an acceptable, if nuanced position on how to navigate health, mental health, and lockdown guidelines that advise against travel and gatherings.

The difference, however, is that where Birx trusted herself to make the right decision for herself and her family, she, including many other officials who issue their missives from on high, do not trust the American public to do the same.

It is this, and not merely the hypocrisy of gathering and traveling after telling others to do the same, that led to the vitriol and attacks against her and her family. No one deserves to be on the receiving end of threats and and verbal assaults for merely trying to care for the needs of their family. But Americans have had enough of leaders telling us to do one thing, while they go off and do the opposite.

Birx stated that she would resign from her post.

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