Deborah Birx reportedly called fighting the pandemic and Scott Atlas 'together' the 'hardest thing I've had to do'

(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

published 12 June 2021

Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus task force coordinator, has been fairly candid about the challenges she faced while working in the Trump administration amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And in a new book about what he considers the federal government's failures to mitigate the spread of the virus, Andy Slavitt, who now serves as a senior adviser on the COVID-19 response to President Biden, reinforces her comments by shedding more light on her experience, CNN reports.

Per CNN, Slavitt details a conversation he had with Birx in August 2020. At the time, she was still technically in her White House role, but she had been cast out of former President Donald Trump's inner circle and no longer had much influence. In her place was Dr. Scott Atlas, a controversial, Trump-favored radiologist with no epidemiological background with anti-coronavirus restriction views. Birx told Slavitt she had "been completely silenced," admitting that "fighting the virus and Scott Atlas together is the hardest thing I've had to do." Read more at CNN.