Several U. S. states reported new record-breaking coronavirus case counts over the weekend, as nationwide the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 140,000…
Several U. S. states reported new record-breaking coronavirus case counts over the weekend, as nationwide the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 140,000 and President Trump insisted again that the virus would « disappear. »
States such as Florida, California and Kentucky were reporting record, or near-record numbers of new cases and in Texas, a hospital official told NPR that funeral homes and morgues were overflowing from the bodies of COVID-19 victims.
Meanwhile, in a Fox News interview aired on Sunday, the president repeated an assertion he first made in late February that COVID-19 would « disappear » on its own, saying that his initial prediction would be proven correct.
« I’ll be right eventually, » the president said in the interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace.
« I said it’s going to disappear. I’ll say it again: It’s going to disappear — and I’ll be right, » he said.
Asked by Wallace if such statements « discredit » him, Trump replied: « You know why it doesn’t discredit? Because I’ve probably been right more than anybody else. »
However there was no indication that the disease would disappear anytime soon based on a snapshot of some of the nation’s hot spots. Here’s a look at a few of them:
Florida
On Sunday, Florida reported 12,478 new cases, its fifth consecutive day with more than 10,000 cases. Although that is off the peak of 15,300 new infections reported less than a week ago, on July 12, which marked not only a record for Florida, but broke the national case-count record set by New York in early April.
The number of COVID-19 deaths in the state since the start of the pandemic surpassed 5,000 on Saturday.
Speaking at a news conference in St. Augustine on Saturday, Gov. Ron DeSantis complained that headlines about the record number of cases were unduly worrying Floridians.
