Trump claims 99% of US Covid-19 cases are 'totally harmless' as infections surge

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/05/trump-claims-99-of-us-covid-19-cases-are-totally-harmless-as-infections-surge

“We got hit by the virus that came from China,” the president said, prompting a strange whoop and applause from someone in the audience. “We’ve made a lot of progress. Our strategy is moving along well. It goes out in one area, it rears back its ugly face in another area. But we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned how to put out the flame.”

The number of infections now regularly tops 50,000 per day, higher than in April when the US was in the first grip of infections. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, warned this week: “I think it’s pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction.”

Trump returned to his now familiar and baseless complaint that America has a high caseload because it performs more tests. “Now we have tested almost 40m people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. Results that no other country can show because no other country has the testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of quality.”

 

It was unclear how the president arrived at the “99%” harmless figure.