WASHINGTON — As cases of the coronavirus continue to spread around the world and the U.S., President Donald Trump is not backing away from spreading personal beliefs about the virus that contradict veteran health officials and experts.
Trump has a long history of distrusting experts, most notably his own intelligence community and government scientists, and he frequently claims to know more than his career experts on a wide range of subjects. But with the world teetering on the edge of a global pandemic, the stakes for Trump's pushback have never been so high. As of Thursday afternoon, 12 U.S. patients had died and more than 100 Americans had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
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Trump has painted criticism about his comments on the virus as a Democratic "hoax" and media "hysteria." On Thursday, the president's re-election campaign sent out a memo claiming that the "media's obsession with weaponizing the coronavirus against President Trump remains at pandemic levels."
Here is a look at the gap between what Trump has said and what health experts say:
Experts say the death rate is 3.4 percent. Trump says that's 'false.'
The World Health Organization said this week that about 3.4 percent of coronavirus patients have died.
"Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said at a news conference in Geneva this week.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Trump claimed that the WHO estimate was "false," citing a "hunch" he had.
"I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number — and this is just my hunch — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it's very mild, they'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people," Trump said.
Death rates can vary over time and are different for each country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Congress on Wednesday that it's too early to know the real mortality rate, because it's not clear how many people have been infected.
Experts predict 'more cases.' Trump says U.S. cases are 'going very substantially down.'
During a news conference at the White House last week, multiple health officials warned that the virus will continue to spread throughout the U.S.
Anne Schuchat, a senior career official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the news conference that "we do expect more cases, and this is a good time to prepare," and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also said the U.S. should expect more cases.
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But Trump has repeatedly downplayed the potential for the coronavirus to spread throughout the U.S., even suggesting without scientific evidence that the number of cases would soon decrease.
At the same news conference, Trump said the number of cases "within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That's a pretty good job we've done."
"We're going very substantially down, not up," Trump added.
Trump says a vaccine is coming soon. Experts say not so fast.
During a coronavirus roundtable Monday with his task force and heads of pharmaceutical companies, Trump appeared to suggest that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be just a few months away.
"I don't know what the time will be. I've heard very quick numbers, that of months. And I've heard pretty much a year would be an outside number. So I think that's not a bad range. But if you're talking about three to four months in a couple of cases, a year in other cases," Trump said.
