Trump Says Coronavirus ‘Affects Virtually Nobody,’ As U.S. Has World’s Highest Death Toll

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden struck completely different tones relating to the COVID-19 pandemic at their respective marketing campaign occasions on Monday. While Trump stated the coronavirus impacts “virtually nobody,” because the U.S. dying toll neared 200,000, Biden stated such a statistic can’t develop into “background noise.”

At a marketing campaign rally on the Toledo Express Airport in Ohio on Monday, Trump stated: “Now we know it. It [the coronavirus] affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems. That’s what it really affects. That’s it.

“You know, In some states, 1000’s of individuals—no one younger. Below the age of 18, like, no one. They have a robust immune system, who is aware of? You look…Take your hat off to the younger, as a result of they’ve a hell of an immune system. But it impacts just about no one. It’s a tremendous factor.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that anybody can catch the coronavirus, however the danger of hospitalization and dying will increase with age, in addition to for these with sure underlying well being situations.

Newsweek has contacted the White House for remark.

Trump didn’t point out the nearing milestone of 200,000 deaths, however stated his administration had saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

The president, who has admitted to downplaying the specter of the coronavirus, addressed the gang within the essential swing state with out a face protecting, with mask-wearing supporters stood shut collectively behind him. The state’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s administration beforehand stated campaigns don’t want to stick to the state’s masks mandate, social distancing and indoor crowd dimension limitations, The Review newspaper reported.

In distinction, at a marketing campaign occasion in Manitowoc, in the important thing battleground state of Wisconsin, Biden addressed the U.S. coronavirus dying toll, and stated he was nervous folks could also be changing into numb to the determine because the pandemic has lasted so lengthy. Biden wore a masks in opposition to a backdrop of the U.S. flag.

There was a restricted group of attendees and reporters on the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, who sat other than each other as Biden spoke, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

“We can’t lose the ability to feel the sorrow and the loss and the anger for so many lives lost,” Biden stated. “We can’t let the numbers become statistics, background noise, just a blur that we see on the nightly news.

“200,000 mothers, dads, sons, daughters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, mates, co-workers who’re not with us. And so a lot of them did not need to lose their lives to this virus, fairly frankly if solely the president had acted sooner.”

For months, the U.S. has had the highest COVID-19 death toll in the world, currently accounting for more than one in five fatalities worldwide at 199,884 of 964,839. It also has the highest number of cases, at more than 6.8 million of 31.3 million globally.

Peter Drobac, a physician and specialist in infectious diseases and public health at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, U.K., told Newsweek: “The pandemic impacts just about all people. I’m undecided what these mistruths accomplish. They actually do not cease folks from dying, or from struggling persistent problems of COVID. They do not get folks their jobs again. They do not get children again into faculty.

“We are on track to see a quarter of a million Americans dead by year end, and it continues to be largely preventable. As we head into winter, there is a good chance things could get worse. It’s a catastrophic failure of governance. And it wouldn’t be that hard to do the right thing and start to turn this around. Follow the science, tell the truth, show some compassion, work together.”

This article has been up to date with remark from Peter Drobac.

donald trump, toledo express airport, swanton, ohio,getty
President Donald Trump speaks at a marketing campaign rally on the Toledo Express Airport on September 21, 2020 in Swanton, Ohio.
Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images

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