Trump uses July 4th address to put forward a dangerously misleading claim

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/05/politics/donald-trump-july-4-coronavirus/index.html

 As the nation marked a somber Fourth of July with many Americans confined to their homes amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump used his stage on the White House's South Lawn Saturday to put forward a mystifying -- and dangerously misleading claim -- that 99% of coronavirus cases in America are "totally harmless."

The President's assertion without evidence about the virus was his latest attempt to minimize the threat of the coronavirus as it ravages the United States with cases rising across the country, and as an increasing number of top Republican officials from the nation's governors to members of Congress pleaded with Americans to redouble their efforts to curb the spread of the virus, warning of the dangerous consequences if current trends continue.

It was in that same speech that he made his latest puzzling claim about the virus, as he described the administration's flawed and lagging response to the pandemic as a great American success story and falsely suggested, once again, that the rise in cases in the US is due to increased testing.

It is unclear how the President could be under the impression that 99% of cases are "totally harmless." There have now been at least 2.8 million cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 35% of cases are asymptomatic, those patients can still spread the virus. As of Saturday, Johns Hopkins estimated that the fatality rate for the US was 4.6%. The White House has not returned CNN's request for comment on the President's claim.

The commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday declined to defend the President and repeatedly refused to say whether Trump's remark is true or false.