Republican North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, delivered a startling warning to a private gathering about the coronavirus weeks before the government matched the dire tone in its messaging about the pandemic.
An attendee of the Tar Heel Circle luncheon secretly recorded the remarks and gave the recording to National Public Radio. The attendee said they were alarmed about Burr’s remarks, which suggested some in the Republican Party fully grasped how serious the pandemic would be but declined to say so publicly.
“One thing I can tell you about this, it is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history. It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic,” Burr said.
[Click here for complete coronavirus coverage]
The warning came two weeks before the State Department cautioned against international travel, and the Trump administration banned European travelers from the United States. Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, and this week said that people should avoid groups of more than 10 people to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they’re making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it?” he said.
Burr’s spokeswoman Caitlin Carroll said the senator had been working to educate the public on the dangers of the coronavirus since at least early February.
“Senator Burr has been banging the drum about the importance of public health preparedness for more than 20 years. His message has always been, and continues to be, that we must be prepared to protect American lives in the event of a pandemic or bio-attack,” Carroll said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“Since early February, whether in constituent meetings or open hearings, he has worked to educate the public about the tools and resources our government has to confront the spread of coronavirus,” she continued. “At the same time, he has urged public officials to fully utilize every tool at their disposal in this effort. Every American should take this threat seriously and should follow the latest guidelines from the CDC and state officials.”
There have been around 222,643 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, 84,506 recoveries, and 9,115 deaths, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker. In the U.S., there have been 9,415 cases, 106 recoveries, and 150 deaths.
