Trump Throws in Towel on COVID-19: It’s “Under Control”

Washington, DC — In an Axios on HBO interview this weekend, President Trump said COVID-19 is “under control” in the United States, and in response to the nation’s death toll, which has climbed past 155,000, said simply, “it is what it is.” The president’s comments reflect the nature of his administration’s pandemic response strategy from the start: After wasting valuable time in the early days of the pandemic and ignoring vital intelligence and strategic information from experts, Trump repeatedly claimed that his government was successfully responding to the virus, even as the virus spread far across the U.S. and deaths soared.

Now, new hotspots are popping up in communities that previously had few cases of the virus, or were able to keep the spread of the coronavirus mostly under control, with an outsized burden expected to be placed on communities of color:

• Kaiser Family Foundation: Growing COVID-19 Hotspots in the U.S. South and West will Likely Widen Disparities for People of Color
• The Conversation: How California’s COVID-19 surge widens health inequalities for Black, Latino and low-income residents

Trump’s own experts have expressed concern for the way COVID-19 is continuing to spread, drawing the president’s ire:

• The New York Times: Birx Warns That U.S. Epidemic Is in a ‘New Phase’
• The Washington Post: Fauci amplifies Birx’s warning about ‘new phase’ of coronavirus spread in U.S.
• CNN: Trump slams Covid-19 comment by Dr. Birx as ‘pathetic’

Cases today topped 4,718,000, and almost 156,000 Americans have died. Is this what “under control” looks like? How will Trump’s “it is what it is” strategy help get these numbers under control?

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