https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-axios-testing-death-coronavirus_n_5f28e936c5b656e9b09f7d7aPresident Donald Trump once again pushed back against statistics showing an uptick in coronavirus death rates in the United States during an interview with Axios that aired Monday.
The president sat down for a sweeping interview with the outlet’s Jonathan Swan on July 28. Swan pressed Trump on figures that showed a recent dramatic rise in the daily death toll linked to cases of COVID-19.
From the beginning of their discussion, the president tried to downplay the number of American deaths. After talking about his television ratings and campaign rallies, Trump said he thinks the coronavirus pandemic is under control.
“How? A thousand Americans are dying a day,” Swan said.
Trump replied, “They are dying, that’s true, and you ha ... it is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.”
During another tense exchange, Swan asked Trump about the rise in average death rates that began in July as tens of thousands of Americans tested positive for the virus each day amid sweeping reopening measures around the country. Those new cases reached more than 75,000 a day on July 16, and while average daily infection rates have since begun to decline, at the time of the interview the seven-day average for reported deaths had risen to more than 1,100 per day.
Those averages continued to rise in the days before the interview aired, and more than 155,000 people have died in the U.S. since the pandemic began.
