Story at a glance
- “Tthe data show that cases are going up. It’s not just a function of testing,” Giroir said during an interview with NBC’s “Today” show.
- Trump in recent days has attributed the rise to more testing.
- The U.S. is currently reporting more than 70,000 cases per day and more than 800 deaths.
A member of the White House coronavirus task force says coronavirus cases are rising in the U.S., and the increasing numbers aren’t only due to more testing.
The Trump administration’s coronavirus testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir on Wednesday said the uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths across the country shows that cases are in fact surging.
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“We do believe and the data show that cases are going up. It’s not just a function of testing,” Giroir said during an interview with NBC’s “Today” show.
Watch @SavannahGuthrie’s full interview with @HHS_ASH, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, on the recent surge in #COVID19 cases and the status of a vaccine. pic.twitter.com/nEDUdhJ1xF
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 28, 2020
“Yes, we’re getting more cases identified, but the cases are actually going up. And we know that, too, because hospitalizations are going up,” he said.
Giroir’s comments stand in stark contrast to President Trump’s repeated suggestion in recent days that the greater testing capacity is responsible for the new nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases.
“Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy,” Trump tweeted Monday.
During a campaign rally in Michigan Tuesday, Trump continued his claim the reason the U.S. has so many cases is due to testing, adding that “in many ways, I hate it [testing].”
“We test everybody…If I told them to cut testing in half and we cut our testing in half, they would go crazy because the cases would go down at approximately half, right?” Trump told supporters.
As of Tuesday, 44,212 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S. compared with just more than 29,000 a month ago, according to The COVID Tracking Project.
The U.S. is currently reporting more than 70,000 cases per day and more than 800 deaths.
Giroir noted that the U.S. is in a critical point in the pandemic but said the virus can be controlled through mitigation efforts such as mask-wearing, avoiding crowded indoor spaces and hand-washing.
“We can reverse that, nobody’s waving the white flag,” Giroir said.
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