President Trump on Wednesday stood by his belief that the coronavirus will eventually “just disappear” even as cases are surging in multiple states this week.
Trump told Fox Business that he is optimistic about the economic recovery from the pandemic-induced shutdown, citing recent strong jobs numbers and a bounce back in retail sales.
“We’re headed back in a very strong fashion with a ‘V,'” Trump said, referring to a V-shaped recovery. “And I think we’re going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”
Pressed by reporter Blake Burman about if he still believes it will disappear, Trump said he does.
“I do. Yeah, sure. At some point, and I think we’re going to have a vaccine very soon, too,” Trump said.
The president has at various times in recent months said he believes the virus will “disappear,” even as record numbers of cases are reported. Trump first said in late February that the virus will disappear “like a miracle.”
He reiterated in May that he believed the virus “is going to go away [even] without a vaccine.”
Trump’s optimism that coronavirus will vanish on its own is at odds with scientists and public health officials in his own administration who have said people will be living with it for the foreseeable future until there is an effective and widely distributed vaccine. Even then, officials have cautioned, life may not fully return to how it was prior to the pandemic.
Rising case numbers and positivity rates in Texas, Arizona, Florida, California and several other states are also indicative that the virus is going strong within the U.S.
California reported 110 deaths Wednesday, the highest daily total it has recorded since the spring.
In Ohio, the state reported 1,076 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the first time since April its daily reported coronavirus cases have exceeded 1,000.
Arizona on Wednesday continued to break records, with nearly 5,000 new daily cases reported, and the state’s death rates have also been increasing.
The inability of certain states to get the virus under control is likely to impede the economic recovery that Trump boasted about in the interview. Within the past week, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Texas have all closed down bars or prohibited the on-site consumption of alcohol in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.