President Trump said on Sunday that the death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. is “exaggerated” – and was immediately rebuked by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Deaths are real deaths. All you have to do is go to the trenches, go to the hospitals, see what health professionals are up against, ”said Fauci on Sunday. “This week” from ABC News.
“They are experiencing very stressful situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained and exhausted staff, ”said Fauci.
“Right now, this is real. This is not false, it is real, ”he said.
Trump had made the complaint about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an hour earlier on Twitter.
“The number of cases and deaths from the China Virus is greatly exaggerated in the United States because of the ridiculous method of determining @CDCgov compared to other countries, many of which report, on purpose, very inaccurately and low. – If in doubt, call Covid. Fake news! ” a president posted on Twitter.
About an hour after Fauci’s appearance on ABC, Trump tweeted again, complaining that Fauci is celebrated by the media, even though “he works for me”.
“Something like Dr. Fauci is revered by LameStream Media as a great professional, having done, they say, an incredible job, but he works for me and the Trump Administration, and in no way do I get any credit for my work. Wow, could this just be more Fake News? ”Trump posted.
The death toll in the U.S. surpassed 350,000 on Sunday and health experts predict the country will have another outbreak of cases and deaths because of the millions who traveled during the holiday.
Surgeon-General Jerome Adams also said he did not doubt the death toll during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union”.
“From the point of view of health, I have no reason to doubt these numbers,” replied Adams, “and I think people need to be well aware that it is not just about deaths, as we said before, it is about hospitalizations, about capacity. These cases are having an impact, ”he said.
Several states have reported a record number of coronavirus cases in the past few days – including North Carolina and Arizona.
And funeral homes in Southern California said they have removed bereaved families because they are unable to care for the bodies quickly enough.
Two vaccines – one from Pfizer and one from Moderna – have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
But although millions of doses have been distributed, the nation is taking too long to put vaccines in people’s arms.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks vaccines, said 13,071,925 doses had been distributed, but only 4,225,756 had been inoculated by Saturday.
With Post Wires