President Trump doesn’t believe the results of the 2020 presidential election — or the death toll of COVID-19 in the U.S., which now tops 350,000, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low,” Trump tweeted. “‘When in doubt, call it Covid.’ Fake News!”
The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. “When in doubt, call it Covid.” Fake News!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who served on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said the numbers are real.
Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci was asked by guest host Martha Raddatz about Trump’s tweet questioning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) methodology.
“Well, the deaths are real deaths. I mean, all you need to do is to go out into the trenches, go to the hospitals, see what the health care workers are dealing with. They are under very stressed situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched,” Fauci said.
“All you need to do is go out into the trenches,” he said. “Go to the hospitals and see what the healthcare workers are dealing with. They are under very stressful situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel who are exhausted.”
“That’s real,” Fauci added. “That’s not fake. That’s real.”
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams also disputed Trump’s tweet. “From a public health perspective, I have no reason to doubt those numbers,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Trump later blasted Fauci for getting all the credit. “Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?”
Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
Later in his interview, Fauci acknowledged that the rollout of two vaccines has suffered “a couple of glitches” but called that “understandable.”
“I think the important thing … is to see what’s happening in the next week to week and a half,” he said. “But some little glimmer of hope is that in the last 72 hours they’ve gotten 1.5 million doses into people’s arms, which is an average of about 500,000 a day, which is much better than the beginning, when it was much, much less than that.”
“So we are not where we want to be. There’s no doubt about that. But I think we can get there if we really accelerate, get some momentum going and see what happens as we get into the first couple of weeks of January,” he added.