U.S. President Donald Trump said that the country has already passed the peak of new coronavirus cases. He also added that some states might even be able to reopen their economies this month.
“The data suggests that nationwide, we have passed the peak of new cases,” Donald Trump said on Wednesdays, BBC reported. “Hopefully that will continue, and we will continue to make great progress.”
“We'll be the comeback kids, all of us,” the President said. “We want to get our country back.”
The Trump administration previously indicated May 1 as a possible date for reopening the U.S. The POTUS said that some states might even be able to reopen earlier.
However, some state governors and health experts are cautious as many feel that it might be too soon to reopen. Dr. Anthony Fauci, for instance, said that the May 1 date might be “a bit overly optimistic.” Health experts recommend a testing and tracking system must be in place before lifting social distancing measures.
Donald Trump also shared his thoughts on why the U.S. is the top country in terms of the number of cases and the death toll. “Does anybody really believe the numbers of some of these countries?” Trump told reporters, naming China in particular.
There are 648,003 COVID-19 cases and 32,443 fatalities due to the virus in the U.S. as of April 16 based on data from Worldometers. For comparison, there are only 82,341 cases and 3,342 deaths in China, where the virus originated.
A U.S. intelligence report claimed that China is “under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease,” according to Bloomberg. “Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and I’m being nice when I say that,” Trump commented.
Trump also confirmed that the U.S. is looking into speculations and unverified reports claiming that the coronavirus might have leaked from a Wuhan laboratory. “I will tell you more and more we're hearing the story and we'll see,” the President said.
The U.S. intelligence, however, believes that the more likely scenario is that the virus occurred naturally. “There's a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media… we've taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen Mark Milley said. “The weight of evidence seems to indicate natural.”