Two top U.S. health officialson Sunday disputed a claim by President Donald Trump thatfederal data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United Statesis overblown, and both expressed optimism that the pace ofvaccinations is picking up.
“The deaths are real deaths,” Anthony Fauci, the director ofthe National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saidon ABC News’ This Week, adding that jam-packed hospitals andstressed-out healthcare workers are “not fake. That’s real.”
Fauci and U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who appeared onCNN’s State of the Union, defended the accuracy of coronavirusdata published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control andPrevention after Trump attacked the agency’s tabulation methods.
“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is farexaggerated in the United States because of the @CDCgov’sridiculous method of determination compared to other countries,many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low,”Trump wrote on Twitter.
Trump, a Republican who leaves office on Jan. 20 afterlosing a bid for a second term to Democrat Joe Biden, hasfrequently has downplayed the severity of the pandemic. He hasalso scorned and ignored federal recommendations for containingthe spread.
More than 20 million people have been infected in the UnitedStates and nearly 347,000 have died – or one out of every 950U.S. residents – since the virus first emerged in China in late2019, according to the CDC.
“From a public health perspective, I have no reason to doubtthose numbers and I think people need to be very aware that it’snot just about the deaths,” Adams said. “It’s about thehospitalizations, the capacity.”
Fauci and Adams expressed optimism that the pace ofvaccinating Americans against the virus is accelerating after aslow start. More than 4.2 million people have been inoculatedsince Dec. 14 with one of two vaccines, far short of the Trumpadministration’s goal of 20 million by the end of 2020.
“We wanted to get to 20 million, but some glimmer of hope isthat in the last 72 hours, they’ve gotten 1.2 million doses intopeoples’ arms, which is an average of about 500,000 a day,”Fauci said. “We are not where we want to be. There’s no doubtabout that. But I think we can get there.”He said he believed that the number of daily vaccinationscould be expanded to 1 million and called for “a realpartnership” between the federal and state governments.(
