Appearing on “Fox and Friends,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied that the White House has a “herd immunity” approach to the novel coronavirus pandemic as harsh criticism continues to mount over the Trump administration’s response and as states around the country report record highs of daily cases.
President Donald Trump’s approach is “therapeutics,” McEnany said, “which by the way has given us the lowest case fatality rate in the world, far lower than Europe.” (This is false, as data from John Hopkins University of Medicine shows.)
“Right now, when you look at hospitals across the United States, the percentage of Covid patients in hospital beds is six percent. It’s because this president did things right,” she continued. “You have a 99 percent survival rate for [those] under 70, above 70 because of our therapeutics. It’s very close to that because of what this president did tearing down bureaucratic barriers, tearing down regulations, paving the way for therapeutics. We have done this right, and the Europe-United States comparison tells that story.”
You can watch a clip of McEnany’s comments below.
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Without actually naming the Daily Beast article in question, the White House press secretary denies that Trump is pursuing a "herd immunity" strategy that Trump's favorite channel (and his Fox-sourced hack of an adviser, Scott Atlas) has pushed hard for. https://t.co/fQGfMLYNz5 pic.twitter.com/LB3NK5h80G
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) October 29, 2020
Therapeutics are not available to all and many Americans face barriers to treatment due to high healthcare costs. The president himself was treated with therapeutics, namely Remdesivir and dexamethasone (a steroid that can trigger a host of psychiatric side effects) after he was hospitalized for Covid-19 complications earlier this month and faced criticism for receiving healthcare access unavailable to most American citizens.
Although many European nations are dealing with a second wave of Covid-19, medical professionals have always warned this would happen as temperatures cooled and more people moved indoors. The same is true in the United States, which in recent days registered some of its highest case rates since the pandemic began and has seen an uptick in fatalities as well.
Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.
