Trump says coronavirus ‘will disappear’ despite 52,000 new US cases in one day
Donald Trump has said he believes coronavirus will ‘just disappear’ as new cases shot up by 52,000 on Wednesday, the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic.
The president’s handling of the pandemic is coming under increasing pressure as states across the country suffer a surge in infections.
In an interview with Fox News, the US president continued to describe coronavirus as a nuisance that he hopes will just go away.
He said: ‘I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.’
But according to data from Johns Hopkins University, there were 52,898 new cases yesterday, while the number of deaths stands at 128,062 – the world’s highest number by far.
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State Governors have responded to this new surge by halting or reversing steps to reopen their economies this week, led by California, the nation’s most populous state.
The pandemic’s epicentre has moved from the Northeast to California, Arizona and New Mexico in the West along with Texas, Florida and Georgia.
Texas topped its previous record on Wednesday with 8,076 new cases, while South Carolina reported 24 more coronavirus deaths, a single-day high for the state. Tennessee and Alaska also had record numbers of new cases on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Trump appeared to shift his stance on wearing a face covering in public yesterday, telling Fox News he is ‘all for masks’.
He even said he thinks wearing a mask makes him look like the fictional Lone Ranger.
He added: ‘I’m all for masks. I think masks are good. People have seen me wearing one. If I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely.’
His comments came a day after Republican lawmakers suggested that he wear a mask in public to set a good example for Americans.
Mr Trump has long resisted being photographed in a mask.
In early April, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures were difficult to maintain.
Mr Trump immediately undercut the CDC guidance by flatly stating that he would not follow it, suggesting it would be unseemly for the president to wear a mask as he meets with heads of state.
He sounded a different tone yesterday, saying: ‘I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked. OK. I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask, and I thought it looked OK.
‘It looked like the Lone Ranger,’ he added, referring to the law-and-order character from the American Old West who wore a black eye mask.
‘I have no problem with that, and if people feel good about it, they should do it.’
In recent days, many Republicans and members of the White House coronavirus task force have been more outspoken in advocating for Americans to wear face masks in public settings as infections have surged across the South and West.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, said last week that he would pursue a federal mask mandate, if elected.
In Wednesday’s interview, Mr Trump suggested a federal mandate was unnecessary and continued to frame mask wearing as a matter of choice.
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