Fauci Admission Debunks Trump’s Rosy Spin On Surging Death Toll
CNN: Fauci admits earlier Covid-19 mitigation efforts would have saved more American lives
NYT: He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
Trump repeatedly claims that fewer people are dying because of his leadership.
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TRUMP ON MARCH 29TH: “So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this. And so if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000. It’s a horrible number, maybe even less —but to 100,000. So we have between 100,000 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job.”
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, is now saying that more lives would have been saved if Trump had acted earlier.
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FAUCI ON APRIL 12TH: “You could logically say, that if you had a process that was ongoing, and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is — is complicated. But you’re right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
Dr. Fauci also acknowledged to CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump ignored his recommendations in February.
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FAUCI ON APRIL 12TH: “You know, Jake, as I have said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it’s not. But we — it is what it is. We are where we are right now.”
In response, Trump retweeted a call for Dr. Fauci to be fired, falsely claiming Fauci was telling people there “was nothing to worry about” at the time.
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TRUMP RETWEETED ON APRIL 12: “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives. Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci…”
But that’s just not true. Trump ignored warnings for months about the severity of the coronavirus, including warnings from Dr. Fauci, leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans.
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On January 30th, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warned Trump that the coronavirus outbreak in the United States could become a pandemic.
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In January and February, Trump ignored classified briefings from his own intelligence officials warning him about the outbreak.
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On February 25th, Trump rejected the warning from the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Nancy Messonnier when she warned that the coronavirus was a serious threat and that Americans should be “preparing significant disruption in our lives.”
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On February 29th, Dr. Fauci warned of “community spread” and for the American people to “prepare for further challenges.”
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CNN reported that top government health officials, including Dr. Fauci, were advocating for “moving away from a containment strategy and toward a mitigation strategy that would involve strong social distancing measures” during the third week of February.
With Trump now threatening to fire Dr. Fauci, he continues to show that he lacks the leadership to address this crisis and protect American lives.