Donald Trump says it's his 'opinion' coronavirus won't come back as US deaths near 50,000
23 April 2020, 01:01
Donald Trump has publicly clashed with health experts over whether or not coronavirus could re-emerge in the United States.
Speaking at the daily White House press conference, Trump claimed what he calls the "fake news media" had "totally misquoted" Centers for Disease Control & Prevention chief Dr. Robert Redfield in an interview with the Washington Post.
In the article - titled "CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating” - Dr Redfield warned a coronavirus resurgence in the Autumn could be more dangerous if it coincides with the flu season.
But when asked about the article, Dr Redfield said he was "accurately quoted", only saying he thought headline should have said "difficult", rather than "deadly".
The US is currently the Covid-19 epicentre of the world, with over 840,000 confirmed cases and the death toll currently standing at more than 47,000.
During Wednesday's conference, Trump also said it was in his "opinion" that coronavirus "might not come back at all".
"If it comes back, it won't be coming back in the form that it was. It will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain," the US President said.
"But what the doctor was saying, and I've spoken to him at a great length, if it should come back together with the flu and the embers of corona, from my opinion from everything I've seen it can never be like anything we've witnessed right now.
"What we've just gone through, we will not go through."
When pressed on how he knew it would not come back at the same level that has already been seen, Trump said "it might not come back at all."
"He's talking about a worse case scenario where you have a big flu and some corona, and if it does come back it's not going to come back like it was."
"Also we have much better containment now, we know about it, before nobody knew anything about it.
"But now if we have pockets, little pockets, then we are going to have it put out. It's going to go out and it's going to go out fast because we'll be watching for it.
"But it's also possible it doesn't come back at all".
When questioned on his statements by reporters, Trump immediately said he didn't say it wasn't going to come back.
He also refused to allow Dr Redfield to answer a question on why he had tweeted the article earlier in the day, without protesting what it said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the county's top expert on infectious diseases, also said that the US could be facing another outbreak in the Autumn.
He said: “We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that," and said how “big or small is going to depend on our response... Nobody can predict what’s going to happen with an outbreak.”
Dr Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House task force, also said there is likely to cases in the Autumn as well, saying the government is preparing for what it may need then.
Trump went on to berate what he called the "fake news media" for not taking an interest in the number of ventilators which were being produced.
He said the US was providing other countries with hundreds of ventilators,
"You want to get the news accurately, you want to write it, if you want to take a look at what you wrote about ventilators. And when we became the king of ventilators we're making different factories, all over ventilators".