Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said in an interview that aired Sunday that the inauguration of President Biden on Wednesday could be a superspreader event.
“It could be — when you bring 30,000 people together where you know that they’re most likely to have asymptomatic infections and you haven’t prescreened, pre-tested [and] serially tested all of these troops,” Dr. Birx told CBS’s “Face the Nation.
“These are dedicated troops,” she said of the 26,000 National Guard members on hand for the Biden inauguration. “They’re going to do their mission. I can promise you that they will sacrifice their own health to do their mission.”
At a superspreader event, one person infected with the novel coronavirus can transmit the virus to an unusually large number of people.
The National Guard troops were called to Washington as a precaution after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
More than 100 National Guard members and dozens of U.S. Capitol police reportedly have tested positive for COVID-19 since Jan. 6.
Other than the heightened security, attendance for the inauguration was intentionally limited because of the pandemic.
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