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Trump Falsely Claims ‘99 Percent’ of Virus Cases Are ‘Totally Harmless’

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The president dismissed the severity of the pandemic, downplaying the effect of the disease even as infections surge across the Sunbelt and rebound in California.
President Trump dismissed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States over the weekend, downplaying the impact of the disease and saying that while the testing of tens of millions of American had identified many cases, “99 percent” of them were “totally harmless.”
His remarks about a virus that has already claimed nearly 130,000 lives were perplexing. The coronavirus is surging across the Sunbelt states and has rebounded in California. At least 2.8 million Americans are known to be infected, and public health officials have said the real number of infections may be 10 times higher.
WHAT WAS SAID
there were no tests for a new virus, but now we have tested over 40 million people. But by so doing, we show cases,99 percent of which are totally harmless. Results that no other country will show, because no other country has testing that we have — not in terms of the numbers or in terms of the quality.
False. No matter how you define harmless, most public health experts and respected coronavirus disease models would flatly contradict Mr. Trump’s assessment.
Calculating the toll of a rapidly moving pandemic while it is still raging is a Sisyphean feat, with outbreaks popping up in different parts of the country, even as improvements in care and new therapies curb mortality rates.
Experts say the president appears to have seized only on a death rate estimate of 1 percent or less that does not capture the entire impact of the disease, and excludes a multitude of thousands who have spent weeks in the hospital or weeks at home with mild to moderate symptoms that still caused debilitating health problems.

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