AP FACT CHECK: Trump a rosy outlier on science of the virus – By Calvin Woodward, Hope Yen (Associated Press) / March 28 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — Groundless assurances keep coming from President Donald Trump, a rosy outlier on the science of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s been that way since before the virus spread widely in the United States, when he supposed that the warmer weather of April might have it soon gone, a prospect the public health authorities said was not affirmed by the research. Now he’s been talking about a country revved up again by Easter, April 12, while his officials gingerly play down that possibility from the same White House platform.
A look at some recent statements during a week when the U.S. death toll reached roughly 1,700 and America rose to No. 1 globally in the number of people infected by COVID-19 since the pandemic began:
TUNNEL VISIONS
TRUMP: “There is tremendous hope as we look forward and we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” — briefing Tuesday.
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: “The light at the end of tunnel may be a train coming at us.” — news conference Thursday.
THE FACTS: In this darkness, they may both be right about the light ahead.
Pandemics pass, though they may exact a terrible cost, as this one is doing. Public health leaders also affirm the truth in Pelosi’s statement that a train will bear down on the nation before it’s over “if you do not heed the advice of the scientific community about isolation … and avoiding as much communal contact as possible — in fact none.”
Yet the California Democrat, like Trump, said better days will come. She said the know-how and commitment of scientists and the money approved by Washington to find a vaccine and cure some day do constitute “light at the end of the tunnel.”
The U.S. now has more than 104,000 confirmed cases, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University, based on figures reported by governments and health authorities. That’s now more than infections in Italy and China, where the virus was first believed to have started.
Continue to article: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ap-fact-check-trump-a-rosy-outlier-on-science-of-the-virus
