Too Soon to Say Whether It’s Safe to Hold a Republican Convention in Florida, Says a US Official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior health official from the Trump administration said Sunday that it was unclear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees a record number of coronavirus cases.

Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, also declined to confirm President Donald Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were harmless and called the situation a “serious problem”.

With a record number of people testing positive for the virus in Jacksonville and throughout Florida, Hahn was asked if it would be safe to hold the typically large RNC meeting in just seven weeks.

“I think it is too early to know,” Hahn said of CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “We will have to see how this unfolds in Florida and in other parts of the country.”

The Republican Party moved most of the convention’s activities to Jacksonville from Charlotte after a battle over concerns about coronavirus safety with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

Jacksonville, led by Republican Mayor Lenny Curry, began requiring masks in public last week after cases continued to escalate.

Trump thrives on large crowds in his campaign rallies and has not adopted masks or social distancing measures in campaign events he has held since the country began reopening due to the closure of the coronavirus.

Trump has repeatedly tried to minimize the jump in confirmed cases and stated without evidence in a July 4 speech that 99% of cases in the United States were “totally harmless.”

Hahn, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, was asked to comment on his boss’s statement.

“So I’m not going to go into who is right and who is wrong,” he said. “It is a serious problem that we have. We have seen the increase in cases. We must do something to stop the tide. ”