WH coordinator Dr. Birx told North Dakota: “Over the last 24 hours, as we were here & we were in your grocery stores & in your restaurants & frankly even in your hotels, this is the least use of masks that we have seen in retail establishments of any place we have been.”

And she has been a lot of places. She no longer has a spot at the White House podium she can use to reach the entire country. So Dr. Birx has been barnstorming hot spots and emerging brush fires around the US for months, targeting the task force's message to local leaders.

“We're making a choice to keep North Dakota children out of the schools by deciding that my personal freedom is more important than that child's education, or my personal freedom is more important ... than caring for a North Dakotan in a long-term care facility,” she said.

ND Gov. Burgum last week said, “I think there’s plenty of data that would show in states with mask mandates are also having record cases & record deaths. If someone could show me the correlation between the mandate & performance, that would be a good thing to see"

HHS internal data obtained by @JoshMargolin shows ND has had a nearly 40% increase in cases week over week. @NYtimes says 5% all North Dakotans have now tested positive. @WashingtonPost reports at one prison there, nearly half the inmates are infected.