Fact-checking: In the speech at work, Trump makes a more dishonest reduction of the pandemic

Fact-checking: In the speech at work, Trump makes a more dishonest reduction of the pandemic

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Trump claims that, as in China and Europe, the situation in the US is ‘under control’. He said health experts “continue to address the temporary hotspots in certain cities and provinces.” And he said, “We have some areas where we put out the flames or the fires, and it works well … I think you will see it soon.”

Anthony Fauci, who was asked during the congressional hearing on Tuesday whether the pandemic was under control, said that although some parts of the country are doing well, the larger numbers ‘speak for themselves’.

“I’m very worried and I’m not happy about what’s going on because we’re going in the wrong direction when you look at the curves of the new business. So we really need to do something about it and we need to do it quickly. The short answer to your question is that it is clear that we are not currently in full control, ‘he said.

Fauci said he would “not be surprised if we raise a day of 100,000 if it does not turn around, which is why I am very worried.”

A health official from senior administration, dr. Brett Giroir, told Congress on Thursday that the increase in recorded cases is due to a real increase in infections, and not just (as Trump has repeatedly claimed) that the country is doing more tests. He mentions the increase in the percentage of tests that is positive.

“There’s no doubt that the more you test, the more you will discover, but we believe this is a real increase in cases as the percentage of positivity increases,” said Giroir, assistant secretary of health for the U.S. Department of State. . of Health and Human Services, told the House Select subcommittee on the Coronavirus crisis.

Giroir said we flattened the curve earlier in the pandemic, but ‘we are not flattening the curve now; the curve is still going up. ‘

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, told CNN on Thursday that Trump’s description of the crisis is inaccurate.

“These are not ‘hot spots’ or ’embers’. Instead, we are seeing a major revival of Covid-19 in the American South, especially in our metro areas, now at 50,000 cases per day and in the coming weeks rapidly. 100,000 cases a day, ‘Hotez said.

“This is not a temporary problem and is not limited to a few hotspots,” said Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the epidemiology program at the University of Delaware.

Horney said a robust system of contact detection, in which health workers try to identify and trace anyone with whom an infected person has been in personal contact, is necessary to control outbreaks. Given the high number of new cases per day and the high reproduction rate of the virus in several states – she listed Florida, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Louisiana – she said it would be very difficult be to scale up a contact tracing program to effectively control the pandemic in those places. ‘
Trump’s comments are in line with misleading remarks made last week by Vice President Mike Pence. This was in line with Trump’s repeat insistence mid-June and late June, against all evidence, that the virus is on the verge of extinction or disappearing.
And they are consistent with Trump’s comments at the outset of the crisis, when he repeatedly and wrongly declared that the virus was ‘under control’.

Hotez said the Trump administration has so far been unable to articulate the scale of the problem, the devastation it is currently causing, and the deaths and permanent injuries that will certainly follow.

CNN’s Amanda Watts contributed to this article.

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