One of former President Trump’s coronavirus task force doctors spoke at a luncheon in College Station on Thursday.
Doctor Brett Giroir, who served as the 16th assistant Secretary of Health, was the featured speaker at a luncheon for the Republican Women of Brazos Valley.
Giroir says serving on the task force was the most challenging experience of his life and he had to use every bit of experience and knowledge that he had to attack the problem. He says the biggest challenges of the pandemic were the unknowns.
“We didn’t understand human to human transmission, we didn’t understand that so many people could be asymptomatic, all these things were really unknown. Dealing with the unknowns, but having to make recommendations and be honest and upfront with the American people was always challenging,” says Giroir.
Giroir says another challenge was the country’s lack of preparedness.
“There was no thought of testing, there was not a single test in the stockpile nor any infrastructure or any manufacturing base. A lot of things really needed to be built on the fly. That will never happen again, but that was clearly the situation that we were in,” says Giroir.
Giroir says his time as former chief executive at the Texas A&M Health Science Center helped prepare him for the fight against coronavirus.
“Texas A&M is a great and unique place. When I came here, it was all about preparing for a pandemic and manufacturing vaccines. And thus the biocorridor really arose with great FUJI here who is manufacturing one of the vaccines that is highly effective and safe,” says Giroir referring to FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies.
Giroir reiterated the importance of vaccinations and says it was unfortunate that the coronavirus vaccine became a political issue during the presidential election.
Listen to “Dr. Brett Giroir Speaks at Republican Women of Brazos Valley Luncheon” on Spreaker.