WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Even as the number of new coronavirus cases and fatalities continues to break records nationally and in states such as Arizona, California, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, the Trump administration focused on the data of states where the situation is improving.
In the most recent interview President Donald Trump said, 'We are going to be in really good shape,' in the next two to four weeks.
Trump told Gray Television last week that he disagrees with the top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci's assessment that the country is still 'knee-deep' in a first wave of Covid-19.
At a routine White House news conference Tuesday, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked what evidence Trump is using to draw that conclusion.
'We are aggressively on the ground reacting to this virus, and we're encouraged to see the declining mortality compared to a few months ago,' she told reporters.
The White House spokesperson claimed that the federal government's efforts have been working in containing the mortality rate from the pandemic.
She cited the example of New York and New Jersey, where there were 21 deaths for every thousand cases and 20 deaths for every thousand cases, respectively, a few months ago.
Now, the deaths in New York and New Jersey are down 1.7 per 1,000 and 1.8 per 1,000, respectively.
As Florida is rapidly becoming the epicenter of the national outbreak, an infectious-disease specialist from the University of Miami Health System, warned, 'What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago, now we're there.'
But the White House looked at it from another angle.
'Florida, for example - though they have 12 cases for every 1,000, it is 0.2 mortality for every thousand cases. In Arizona, 0.3 deaths for every thousand cases. So we are seeing that our therapeutics are working, that dexamethasone and convalescent plasma and remdesivir are working. And that's something good and something that the President takes note of'.
When a reporter pointed out that Arizona has more new cases of coronavirus than any country in the world, which shows the United States is not doing as well as other countries in handling the outbeak, McEnany replied, 'when you lead the world in testing, that means that you identify more cases'.
According to CNN, nearly one out of every 100 Americans have tested positive for Covid-19.
When asked if it's safe to send children back to school ignoring the death of a teacher who was teaching summer school in Arizona due to COVID, she quoted the CDC director, who said children are not very much affected by coronavirus.
The White House denied that the Trump administration is trashing Dr. Fauci and sending out opposition research to reporters. McEnany clarified that Dr. Fauci and the President have always had a very good working relationship.
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