Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, will attend a Small Business Committee of Honor Committee on Coronavirus Assistance and “Implementation of Title I of the CARES Act.”, In Washington, USA, June 10, 2020.
Al Drago | Reuters
Utah sen. Mitt Romney criticized the Trump administration’s early response to the coronavirus outbreak on Friday, saying it dismissed the virus from the outset as a threat and failed to take immediate action.
“In the short term, I think it’s fair to say that we (the United States) have not really distinguished ourselves in a positive way by how we reacted to the crisis when it was upon us,” Romney said during an interview with the Sutherland Institute.
Romney, a Republican who has spoken out publicly against Trump over a number of issues, said the “evidence of the pudding is evident in the number of reported deaths of Covid-19.
“We have 5% of the world population, but 25% of the world die because of Covid-19, and there is no way to spin that in a positive light,” he said.
The U.S. has reported at least 168,462 deaths related to the coronavirus out of the 766,488 deaths in the world to date, marking nearly 22% of the total worldwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. However, a recent Yale study suggests that the true number of deaths from Covid-19 could be substantially higher than the number of confirmed deaths.
While Romney applauded Congress and the administration for moving quickly to provide financial relief under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, he said the administration did not immediately “ring all the alarm bells.” They failed to distribute personal protective equipment in any proportionate manner and were slow to scale the production of the essential supplies, he said.
“The health impact of Covid-19 on our country and our reaction to it has been really, really disappointing,” Romney said.
President Donald Trump has at times denied the cause of death of the Covid-19, telling Jonathan Swan of Axios in an interview conducted in late July that the death toll “is what it is.” During the interview, Trump said his administration has done and “unbelievable” job to respond to the pandemic.
“They’re dying. That’s true, and – that’s what it is,” Trump said. “But that does not mean we are not doing everything we can. It is under control as much as you can control it,” Trump said in the interview.
The White House could not be immediately reached for comment.
– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. en Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
.
