President Donald Trump has made a lot of audacious — and inaccurate — claims about coronavirus in the United States over the past few weeks, one of them being that the number of cases would be going down, and soon would approach zero within a matter of days.
His own Surgeon General contradicted that specific notion on Tuesday morning.
During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told host George Stephanopoulos that things were going to improve, but not before more cases would likely present themselves in communities across the nation.
“Not every community has an outbreak going on right now, but people should know that this is likely to get worse before it gets better,” Adams said.
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“There are things we can do and not panic,” Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams tells @GStephanopoulos.
Here are the steps you can take:
1. Know your risk
2. Know your circumstances
3. Know the steps that you can take to prepare⁰https://t.co/SxH3OmMyMD pic.twitter.com/RBl0fXPde7— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 10, 2020
As of Tuesday morning, according to Reuters, there are 755 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S., with 26 confirmed deaths due to the disease.
During a press conference last week, Trump offered his opinion on the disease’s spread, suggesting that “within a couple of days” the total number of cases in the country “is going to be down to close to zero.”
Obviously, that hasn’t been the case, and it’s unclear why Trump thought as much, as health experts speaking during the same press conference he had attended were saying just the opposite.
That didn’t stop him from patting himself on the back about it, however. “That’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” Trump added.
The president
U.S. President Donald Trump responds to questions about the U.S. House impeachment investigation during a formal signing ceremony for the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement at the White House in Washington, October 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
has made other claims about coronavirus, or COVID-19, that have turned out to be false, and which could put the nation at risk if enough people buy into them and follow his advice.
On February 10, for example, Trump said that the disease would likely disappear as springtime temperatures came about.
Trump on coronavirus: "A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat. As the heat comes in. Typically that will go away in April. We're in great shape, though. pic.twitter.com/p4qEGUWB49
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2020
“A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April,” Trump said.
Trump has also compared coronavirus to the flu, a move that many health experts have warned against doing.
Chris Walker is a freelance journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin, who focuses on news, politics, and analysis of world events. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, since 2005 Chris has reported on workers’ rights protests in Wisconsin, opined on four separate presidential elections and written on a number of other political subjects for a variety of national online publications.
