- U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Sunday expressed confidence in the delivery of COVID-19 data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after being criticized without foundation by President Donald Trump.
- “From a public health perspective, I have no reason to doubt these numbers,” said Adams during a Sunday appearance on CNN.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contested Trump’s characterization of the CDC data on Sunday.
- As of Sunday, more than 350,000 people have died in the United States as a result of COVID-19, according to an analysis by Johns Hopkins University. The CDC total is slightly below, at just over 346,000.
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U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Sunday he believed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were counting and accurately representing COVID-19 infections and deaths after President Donald Trump had unreasonably questioned their accuracy.
The President in Twitter criticized his own government on Sunday, claiming that “the number of cases and deaths of the virus from China is greatly exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, on purpose, of very inaccurate and low. “
Trump has long referred to COVID-19 as the “China Virus”, despite the racist connotations associated with the nickname. As Business Insider’s Yelena Dzhanova reported on Sunday, the CDC is run by people that President Trump has appointed and for months regularly updated its COVID-19 statistics.
“From a public health standpoint, I have no reason to doubt these figures,” Adams told CNN’s Jake Tapper during an appearance on “State of the Union.”
He added: “And I think people need to be very aware that it is not just about deaths, as we talked about earlier. It is about hospitalizations, capacity. These cases are impacting in many ways and people need to understand that there is a line in sight, but we have to keep running towards it. “
—State of the Union (@CNNSotu) January 3, 2021
For a month, COVID-19’s daily hospitalizations in the U.S. were over 100,000, and experts predict that hospitalizations in the country will only increase as cases of the disease after the holiday are diagnosed, as reported by Insider Aria Bendix.
According to data analyzed by Johns Hopkins University, more than 350,000 people died in the United States after contracting COVID-19 on Sunday, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. More people died in the United States than in any other country in the world, according to the analysis. On Saturday, the CDC tracker put the US death toll at just over 346,000.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also said on Sunday that the CDC numbers are accurate.
“This is not false,” said Fauci during an appearance on ABC News. “This is real.”
While there is no evidence that the number of cases or deaths of COVID-19 is erroneous or intentionally exaggerated, despite unmasked conspiracy theories that have persisted since the early days of the pandemic, scientists and experts for months said the opposite could be true: o The US may be underestimating the number of people who were infected with COVID-19 and died as a result.
Although two vaccines received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the end of last year, the vaccine will be slow to launch and will take months before all Americans who want to be vaccinated can receive the injection.
Current distribution plans are left to state health departments and generally prioritize health workers and residents of long-term care facilities.