[ad_1]
Fox News presenter Chris Wallace suggested that President Donald Trump’s administration response to the COVID-19 pandemic was “a massive failure” as he interviewed the Secretary of Health and Human Rights on Sunday. Social services of President Alex Azar.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the novel coronavirus pandemic and ignored the masks, which help curb the spread of new infections. The president flouted social distancing guidelines, hosting large events and rallies indoors with many attendees forgoing masks.
Meanwhile, the pandemic is growing nationwide as the United States continues to have the highest number of infections and deaths of any country. As of early Sunday afternoon, the United States has confirmed more than 14.6 million infections and more than 281,000 deaths since the outbreak began here in January. More than 101,000 Americans are currently hospitalized as the United States on average adds more than 190,000 new infections per day and an average of more than 2,100 people die each day.
In an interview with Azar on Fox News Sunday, Wallace pointed to the spike in new infections, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as recent remarks from the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, warning that the coming months could be “the most difficult time in the history of public health in this country. “
“Secretary Azar, isn’t this the result of a massive failure by President Trump and his administration?” Wallace asked Azar.
“Chris, we are seeing these outbreaks in the United States but also in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain,” replied the official in the Trump administration. “It’s a question of behavior and cold weather. People are coming in, ”he said, arguing that Americans are not following federal government guidelines. “They don’t wear their masks.”
Wallace then confronted Azar with a clip of Trump dismissing the CDC’s directives to wear masks on April 3. In the video, Trump insisted the masks would be “voluntary,” saying, “I don’t think I’m going to do it. “
“If President Trump wore a mask at the time and urged everyone to wear a mask, then in April the way [President-elect] Joe Biden is right now, wouldn’t we be in much better shape? Wallace asked.
Azar responded by pointing out that the Trump administration’s guidelines since April have called on Americans to wear masks. “The president has called the masks acts of ‘patriotic’. Each of his key advisers, we wear masks. We are talking about data,” said the Trump administration official.
But Wallace pushed back, reaffirming his view that the president failed to lead by example in accordance with public health guidelines.
The point is that the president said on the first day, April 3, that he was not going to wear a mask. He did not wear a mask in public for three months until July and just last night in that rally in Georgia., not only was he not wearing a mask, but I was watching the rally – thousands of people gathered. No one I could see was wearing a mask, “Wallace said. He pointed out that it is a “Direct violation of what the CDC and you recommend.”
Azar insisted that federal government guidelines are “always the same” regardless of setting. But he didn’t specifically criticize Trump or the Georgia rally. The Trump administration official added again that the president called the masks “patriotic.”
Newsweek contacted the Department of Health and Human Services for further comment, but did not immediately respond.
During the interview, Azar also referred to President-elect Joe Biden as “a former vice president.” Wallace interrupted him several times in a row, saying the appropriate title was “President-elect Joe Biden.”
Although Biden was cast as the winner of the presidential election almost a month ago, Trump has refused to give in. The president and his supporters have made unfounded allegations of widespread electoral fraud, insisting that the election was “rigged”. They did not provide any evidence to support these claims, and nearly all of the legal challenges brought by Trump and his lawyers have been dismissed or dismissed in court.
In addition to repeatedly defying social distancing guidelines by hosting large rallies and indoor events while forgoing masks, Trump confirmed to reporter Bob Woodward in March that he was intentionally downplaying the severity of the pandemic to the public.
“I always wanted to play it down,” the president said. “I always like to minimize it because I don’t want to create a panic.”
White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr Deborah Birx expressed concern in an interview with NBC News’ Meet the press Sunday on the president’s repeated efforts to flout federal guidelines regarding the pandemic.
“I hear community members come back to these situations, repeat that masks don’t work, repeat that we should be working on herd immunity, repeat that gatherings don’t result in widespread events. And I think our job is to constantly say these are myths, ”Birx said.
[ad_2]
Source link