Donald Trump Jr. downplays COVID-19 deaths depites daily numbers nearing 1,000 mark

While COVID-19 deaths in the United States approached one thousand a day, Donald Trump Jr. disputed the fatality of the outbreak and said the virus deaths had fallen to "almost nothing". In a televised interview with Fox News on October 29, the US President's eldest son slammed critics of the Trump administration and said that the country had "gotten control" of the pandemic, adding that officials have now come to "understand how it works". 

Trump Jr said that the CDC has the "therapeutics" to be able to deal with the deaths related to the pandemic. He further claimed that the US is "outperforming" Europe in a positive manner. "We’ve gotten a hold of this," he reiterated. 

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The US President's son comments come after more than 5,600 coronavirus fatalities were reported over the past week, adding to more than 222,000 existing COVID-19 deaths. The United States is the worst-hit country globally and according to CDC, the country’s total COVID-19 death count has surged to over 227,000, after new deaths rose by 1,060 in the space of one day alone. 

Even with the rapid spread of the virus, the US President has reiterated that deaths are "way down" in the country. While taking to Twitter on Friday, Trump said that mass testing is exaggerating the numbers of infections and hospitals are coping. He even added that the United States is doing "much better" than Europe. 

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Fauci says US is on 'difficult trajectory’ 

Meanwhile, public health experts -- including the top health official on the White House’s coronavirus task force Dr. Anthony Fauci -- have repeatedly warned that the US is in for a "whole lot of pain" because it is not controlling the pandemic. Earlier this week, Fauci had said that the nation is on a "very difficult trajectory" and a large number of states are going in the "wrong direction". 

US National Institute of Allergy and Heath Infectious Disease's director also noted that political division, as well as fear of economic loss, also affected how the country was currently performing. Talking about the masks becoming a symbol of a person’s political inclination, Fauci said that it has been painful to witness this divisiveness centred around a public health issue.  

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