"The deaths are real deaths," Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on ABC News’ This Week, adding that jam-packed hospitals and stressed-out healthcare workers are "not fake. That’s real.”
Fauci and US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who appeared on CNN’s State of the Union, defended the accuracy of coronavirus data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after Trump attacked the agency’s tabulation methods.
“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of the @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Trump, a Republican who leaves office on Jan. 20 after losing a bid for a second term to Democrat Joe Biden, has frequently has downplayed the severity of the pandemic. He has also scorned and ignored federal recommendations for containing the spread.