White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Monday that the “vast majority” of Americans are safe from the novel coronavirus and defended President Trump’s remark that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.”
Meadows, appearing on “Fox & Friends,” said Trump’s remarks were supported by statistics, though he didn’t cite specific numbers.
“I don’t even know that it’s a generalization,” Meadows said when asked about the president’s comment over the weekend. “When you start to look at all the [statistics] and all the numbers that we have, the amount of testing that we have, the vast majority of people are safe from this.”
Nearly 2.9 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus and nearly 130,000 have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That would lead to a death rate well above 1 percent, to say nothing of those cases that result in people becoming gravely ill.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said last month, however, that coronavirus infections could be 10 times higher than the number actually reported. As a result, some believe the death rate in the U.S. is much lower.
The top White House official said that those who are elderly or have comorbidities need to be “very careful” but said the risk was low otherwise.
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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also defended the president’s remarks during a separate appearance on Fox News Monday morning. She said that he was making a “factual point” that the majority of Americans who contract the coronavirus will recover from it.
“The president was making a factual point that most people will recover from coronavirus who get it. That this very small fraction of people fall victim to coronavirus in a fatal way,” McEnany said, noting that the mortality rate in the U.S. is lower than that in other countries.
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Meadows doubles down on Trump claim that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless" https://t.co/cpJsZVSCBH pic.twitter.com/qR5pR6S5uY
— The Hill (@thehill) July 6, 2020
“@realDonaldTrump Falsely Claims ‘99 Percent’ of Virus Cases Are ‘Totally Harmless’” … which means 1% or 3.5 million deaths in the United States?! That’s some roll of the dice. https://t.co/lSvocedOpM
— David A. Andelman (@DavidAndelman) July 6, 2020
The United States has 4.2% of the world’s population, but over 25.3% of the infections and 24.4% of the deaths. It is an overwhelming indictment of gross negligence and incompetence pic.twitter.com/eg2jxzpORb
— Barry Ritholtz (@ritholtz) July 6, 2020
The top White House official said that those who are elderly or have comorbidities need to be “very careful” but said the risk was low otherwise.”
Tell that to the widow of Nick Cordero, age 41, a professional dancer on Broadway, who died from COVID yesterday.
Trump and his cult still believe COVID is no big deal.
Biden campaign: Meadows agreeing virus is mostly "harmless" shows "rotten values" of Trump administration https://t.co/losoyK5YRS pic.twitter.com/1MNmAk0ddt
— The Hill (@thehill) July 6, 2020
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