FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said: “Any death, any case is tragic.“ | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday declined to provide supporting evidence for President Donald Trump’s assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless,” as mayors across the country battling spikes in infections balked at the unsubstantiated claim.
“Now we have tested almost 40 million people … by so doing, we show cases 99 percent of which are totally harmless,” Trump said Saturday in a speech at the White House marking Independence Day celebrations.
The president may have been referring to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic this week that the hospitalization rate is 102.5 per 100,000. But the long-term health ramifications of the coronavirus remain unknown, and mortality rates continue to vary greatly for reasons that are not immediately clear. There are now more than 2.8 million diagnosed cases in the United States and more than 129,000 deaths.
On ABC’s “This Week,” co-anchor Martha Raddatz asked Hahn whether Trump’s statement was accurate.
“Well, let’s talk about where we are right now. We’re seeing cases around the Sun Belt,” he said. “We are certainly concerned, at the White House corona task force, about this … We’ve sent teams into those states to actually help with taking care of the patients who are now with Covid-19.”
“I want to ask you again, Dr. Hahn,” Raddatz pressed. “How many cases would you say are harmless?”
“You know, any case, we don’t want to have in this country. This is a very rapidly moving epidemic, rapidly moving pandemic. And any death, any case is tragic. And we want to do everything we can to prevent that,” Hahn replied.
The commissioner similarly demurred when questioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” by host Dana Bash. “I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,” he said, adding: “We have seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide.”
Hahn also urged Americans to follow CDC guidance and comply with protocols from municipal and state governments — though, as several local leaders have noted, those can often be at odds.
As Hahn struggled Sunday to explain the factual basis for the president’s statistic, mayors of Southern communities that have emerged as coronavirus hot spots flatly rejected the 99 percent figure.
“No, that’s not the case,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“I will tell you, a month ago, one in 10 people were testing positive. Today, it’s 1 in 4,” Turner said. “The number of people who are getting sick and going to the hospitals has exponentially increased. The number of people in our ICU beds has exponentially increased.”
