“You know, any case, we don’t want to have in this country,” Stephen Hahn said.
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday declined to provide supporting evidence for President Donald Trump’s assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.”
“Now we have tested almost 40 million people … by so doing, we show cases 99 percent of which are totally harmless,” President Donald Trump said in a Saturday speech to mark Independence Day celebrations.
The president may have been referring to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic this week that 102.5 per 100,000 recorded cases warrant hospitalization. But the long-term health ramifications of coronavirus are unknown, and mortality rates continue to vary greatly for reasons that are not immediately clear. There are now more than 2.8 million diagnosed cases in the United States and more than 129,000 deaths.
On ABC’s “This Week,” co-anchor Martha Raddatz asked Hahn if Trump’s statement was accurate.
“Well, let’s talk about where we are right now. We’re seeing cases around the Sun Belt,” Hahn said. “We are certainly concerned, at the White House corona task force, about this … We’ve sent teams into those states to actually help with taking care of the patients who are now with Covid-19.”
“I want to ask you again, Dr. Hahn,” Raddatz said. “How many cases would you say are harmless?”
“You know, any case, we don’t want to have in this country. This is a very rapidly moving epidemic, rapidly-moving pandemic. And any death, any case is tragic. And we want to do everything we can to prevent that,” Hahn replied.
Hahn made a similar point on CNN’s “State of the Union” to host Dana Bash: “I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,” adding: “We have seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide.”
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FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn didn't provide supporting evidence for President Donald Trump’s assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless" https://t.co/IFZnsi6LqD
— POLITICO (@politico) July 5, 2020
Yes, that whole "factually right and wrong" thing isn't really something a scientist can decide, is it https://t.co/wUDI7Z595V
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 5, 2020
It’s not easy being a medical professional anywhere within Trump’s administration. There has to be a temptation for these experts to shout “This president is an idiot” or something similar whenever he says things like the virus is harmless or it’s under control. But of course, they want to keep their jobs, so they stay quiet. Some who have said this pandemic is far from over, such as Dr. Fauci, are subjected to ridicule or conspiracy theories about their motives.
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