White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows claimed Monday that the ‘vast majority of people’ are safe from the coronavirus and that the risk of the disease is ‘extremely low’ for those without risk factors.
Meadows made his claim as the United States as seeing a surge in the rate of infections as states begin the reopening process with the average for daily new cases reaching a record high for the 27th straight day on Sunday. Overall the U.S. has more than 2.93 million people infected and more than 132,000 people have died.
But Meadows, 60, said unless someone is of high age or has one of the risk factors then they are safe from the virus.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows claimed Monday that the ‘vast majority of people’ are safe from the coronavirus
Meadows made his claim as the United States as seeing a surge in the rate of infections as states begin the reopening process with the average for daily new cases reaching a record high for the 27th straight day on Sunday
‘When you start to look at the stats and look at all the numbers that we have – the amount of testing that we have – the vast majority of people are safe from this,’ he said on ‘Fox & Friends.’
‘When you look at the deaths that we have, if you’re over 80 years of age or if you have three what they call co morbidities – diabetes, hypertension, heart issues – then you need to be very very careful. Outside of that the risks are extremely low,’ he added.
He also told reporters at the White House later that ‘a lot of these cases are asymptomatic.’
‘If you look at the vast majority of those from 65 years of age and younger, if they don’t have a comorbidity, we’re looking at at this is not only not as dangerous as a number of other things that could potentially cause a loss of life,’ he said during a Q&A session on the White House drive way.
‘And that’s the real key is when you start to take out some of the deaths we’ve had in nursing homes, and those it’s not to downplay the deaths that we’ve had. But it’s really to look statistically to know that whatever risks that you may have or I may have, or my children or my grandchildren may have, let’s look at that appropriately,’ Meadows added.
The White House has pushed for a return to normalcy and a reopening of the country in order to get the economy back on track.
Polls show voters give the president low marks for his handling of the pandemic, but they give him a high grade on the economy. The president has banked his reelection campaign on a strong economic message.
President Trump also will return to the campaign trail on Saturday with an outdoor rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after his disastrous rally in Tulsa in late June.
At the New Hampshire event, Trump’s campaign will pass out hand sanitizer and face masks, which people will be encouraged to wear.
‘There will be ample access to hand sanitizer and all attendees will be provided a face mask that they are strongly encouraged to wear,’ the president’s campaign assured.
The new stance on face masks is a marked changed from the June 20th rally in Tulsa, where masks were handed out but campaign said the decision to wear them was a personal choice. That rally fell way short of expectations in terms of the crowd – more than 6,000 people showed up when the BOK Center could hold 19,000. Most people did not social distance nor wear masks. And eight members of the Trump advance team tested positive for coronavirus ahead of the rally’s start.
Meadows said the changed stance on masks for the Portsmouth rally was a ‘precaution.’
‘It’s more a factor of precaution,’ he said.
‘We want to make sure that other people feel safe,’ he said.
And Trump argued over the weekend that 99 per cent of the coronavirus cases were ‘totally harmless.’
‘Now we have tested almost 40 million people … by so doing, we show cases 99 percent of which are totally harmless,’ he said Saturday during a speech at the White House for a Fourth of July celebration.
Meadows said the president wasn’t downplaying the risks of COVID, just looking at the facts.
‘I don’t think it was the President’s intent to downplay that as much as saying let’s look at the risk, and let’s look at this in an appropriate way, based on facts and figures,’ he said.
During Independence Day remarks at the White House, Trump said: ‘Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99 per cent of which are totally harmless’
FDA Commissioner and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Stephen Hahn refused to comment Sunday morning on if there is any validity to Donald Trump’s claim that 99 per cent of coronavirus cases are ‘totally harmless’
Trump also insisted that the U.S. would develop a vaccine or some other therapeutic solution to treat the virus ‘long before’ the end of 2020.
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday declined to back up Trump’s claim.
‘I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,’ he told CNN. ‘We have seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide.’