Donald Trump Jr. said COVID 19 deaths have dropped to “almost nothing” after more than 5,600 coronavirus deaths were reported last week, adding to the more than 220,000 existing COVID 19 deaths.
The president’s eldest son told Fox News on Thursday night that the U.S. had “brought the virus under control” and claimed that officials now “understand how it works.
The Quote
“I went through the CDC because I kept hearing about new infections. I was fine, why don’t they talk about deaths? Oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because we’ve got this thing under control, we understand how it works.
“You have the therapeutics to deal with it. If you look at this, look at my instagram, it’s almost nothing. We outperform Europe in a positive way. So good, because we’ve got it under control.
Why it matters
In the last seven days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recorded just over 5,600 COVID-19 deaths and over 521,000 new infections, bringing the total number of cases in the U.S. to more than 8.8 million.
The total number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. also rose to just over 227,000 on Thursday afternoon, after the number of new deaths rose by 1,060 in one day alone.
Three states also saw an increase in new cases yesterday: The Minnesota Department of Health reported more than 2,800 new cases, as Illinois and Indiana were affected by over 6,300 and 3,600 new infections, respectively.
Average daily deaths in Missouri and Wisconsin have also risen steeper since mid-September, reporting a weekly increase in new COVID-19 deaths per capita over the past two weeks.
Counterpoint
Speaking to CNBC earlier this week, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that the US would face “a great deal of pain” if its current approach to fighting the pandemic continues.
“If things don’t change – if they continue as they are – there will be a lot of pain in this country in terms of additional cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” the infectious disease expert told the network.
“We are on a very difficult course. We are going in the wrong direction. We have an average of 70,000 cases per week”.
He added that there are “a large number of states” moving in the “wrong direction” and warned that the US could be in a bad position in a month’s time due to the increase in infections.
