- The head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sunday evaded questions about President Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
- “I am not going to analyze who is right and who is wrong,” said Dr. Stephen Hahn during an interview on CNN.
- Coronavirus cases are on the rise in the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and reported deaths in the world.
- Trump has made a host of false and misleading claims about COVID-19, while repeatedly downplaying the threat from the virus, which has killed nearly 130,000 people in the U.S.
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The Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn did not explicitly defend or contradict President Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union”, host Dana Bash said she couldn’t find a single health expert to back up Trump’s claim, and asked Hahn for his opinion.
“We know that cases are emerging in the country,” said Hahn. “The solution for all Americans is to follow the guidelines of the CDC and the White House task force. Social distance, wear a mask if you find yourself in a situation where you cannot social distance, good hand hygiene. … and if you are around someone who is vulnerable and you think you have been exposed, be careful and avoid exposing that person. “
Bash continued to press Hahn on the President’s unsubstantiated claim that 99% are “harmless,” noting that data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that only a third of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic. He also noted the fact that the World Health Organization said that about 20% of people with coronaviruses are “sick enough to need oxygen or hospital care.”
“Not true,” Bash said of Trump’s claim. “This is really important, probably one of the most important erroneous claims or, frankly, lies that the president has presented,” added Bash. “It really affects people’s health. If you hear the president say that 99% of people are fine, they are going to change their behavior, potentially get sick, infect other people.”
When asked how that made Hahn feel like a member of the White House coronavirus task force, the FDA chief said, “We must take this seriously, we must institute these public health measures, we cannot avoid them. It is of vital importance to Americans must follow those guidelines and protect the most vulnerable. ”
Refusing to budge, Bash asked Hahn if Trump was “wrong” in saying that 99% of cases are “totally harmless.”
“I am not going to go into who is right and who is wrong,” Hahn said in response.
—CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 5, 2020
During a July 4 celebration in Washington, DC, on Saturday, Trump said: “We have now examined nearly 40 million people. In doing so, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. Results than any other country it can show why no other country has the evidence we have, not in terms of numbers or quality. “
Trump has made a series of false or unfounded claims about the coronavirus pandemic since it began months ago and repeatedly embellished America’s evidence capacity, while falsely claiming that the recent increase in cases is due to increased testing.
Speaking of the alarming increase in cases last week, Undersecretary of Health Brett Giroir, the coronavirus testing czar, said: “We think this is a real increase in cases because the percentage of positivities is going up. So this is a real increase in cases. “
“I think it is pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Thursday of the spread of COVID-19 in the United States.
The president spent weeks downplaying the virus threat in the first days of the outbreak, and many of the country’s leading health experts have put him off for his handling of the virus.
In late February, Trump told Americans that the number of cases in the United States would be “close to zero” in a couple of days. At that time, senior public health officials warned that cases would rise, urging Americans to prepare for serious disruptions to daily life.
In April, Trump suggested that people could inject household disinfectants to cure the virus, prompting bleach manufacturers to warn Americans not to inject or ingest their products under any circumstances. Medical experts condemned Trump’s comments as irresponsible and dangerous.
As of Sunday morning, there were more than 2.8 million reported cases of COVID-19 in the United States, along with nearly 130,000 confirmed deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
A vaccine is widely seen as the surest way to defeat the virus. In another Sunday morning interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Hahn declined to endorse Trump’s claim that a vaccine would be ready “long before the end of the year.”
“I can’t predict when a vaccine will be available,” said Hahn.
