On Thursday, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus went over 1,000 and the number of people who have tested positive reached 81,578.
On that same day, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million people filed for unemployment insurance — by far, the most who have ever done so in a single week in American history.
Despite those grim figures and the ongoing spread of the virus, coupled with the declining economic outlook, Donald Trump told reporters at his daily briefing that “a lot of good things are happening.”
Trump’s statement echoed the outlook from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who earlier in the day said the massive job losses were “not relevant.”
REPORTER: Do you think that the economic uncertainty has passed?
DONALD TRUMP: No, not yet. It hasn’t passed but it’s come a long way. I think they think we’re doing a really good job in terms of running this whole situation having to do with the virus.
I think they feel that — I think they feel the administration, myself and the administration, they’re doing a good job. We’re keeping — very important — the people informed. Because it was a great fear.
And, a lot of good things are happening. The mortality rate is at a — in my opinion — you have to speak to Deborah [Birx], Tony [Fauci], all of the others — but in my opinion it’s way, way down and that takes a lot of fear out. You know, it’s one thing to have it, it’s another thing to die.
You know, when I first got involved, I was being told numbers that were much, much higher than the number that seems to be. And remember that people that have it — many people have it — I just spoke to two people they had it, they never went to a doctor but they had it, absolutely had it but they never went to a doctor, they never went to anything — they didn’t report it.
You have thousands and hundreds of thousands of cases like that. So you have to add that to the caseload also. And the people that actually die, that percentage is a much lower percentage than I ever thought.
That’s one of the reasons I say, “Look, we’re going to beat this and we’re going to get back to work.”
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
