Source: Wikimedia

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Trump mused that “hundreds of thousands of people” will recover from coronavirus while going about their normal lives and even while continuing to go to work. These comments directly contradict the advice given by the CDC.

The President told Fox personality Sean Hannity:

“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. So you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and or virus. So you just can’t do that. So, if you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better.”

Here is the President of the United States telling the country it's okay to go to work with Coronavirus.

I'm not kidding. pic.twitter.com/Tz4kKbyear

— Matt Rogers 🎙 (@Politidope) March 5, 2020

It is true that the majority of people will only have mild symptoms if they contract COVID-19 or coronavirus. However, 1 in 5 will need to be hospitalized. For this reason, the CDC and the WHO are advising people to self-quarantine and restrict all activities that would send them outside the home.

The CDC website states:

“Do not go to work, school or public areas. Avoid using public transportation, ride-sharing or taxis.”

In order to limit the spread as much as possible, large companies like Amazon and Microsoft have started having employees work remotely when possible.

The President’s words are irresponsible and dangerous.

It’s difficult to wrap your head around the fact that the president called into a TV show & made a series of statements during a pandemic directly contradicting public health advice. The mind boggles at how reckless & dangerous that is. People who follow his bad advice could die.

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) March 5, 2020

But claiming people can still work while infected with coronavirus isn’t the only misinformation Trump is spreading this week.

The Hunch

During a press briefing on Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died.”

Ghebreyesus’s mortality rate is higher than the previously reported rate of 2.3%. While a less than 1% increase may seem minimal, when that percentage marks the loss of human life, it is quite marked.

Most people would find the increase in the mortality rate to be an alarming development, especially since the virus continues to spread around the globe. But most people aren’t Donald Trump.

The President has chosen not to be concerned in the slightest. In fact, he told Sean Hannity that he thought it was “really a false number.”

Does Trump have some newer, better scientific evidence to back up this claim?

No, he does not. “This is just my hunch,” he said.