Fauci dismisses Trump's claim on 'exaggerated' Covid-19 data, says 'that's not fake'

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Sunday contradicted President Donald Trump's claim of "exaggerated" COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country by saying that these numbers were not real. While stating that he doesn't speak for the President, Jerome Adams said, "I speak for the office of the surgeon general and the public health service. US Surgeon General further added that he is focussed on making sure people get the right information they need."

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Asserting that he has "no reason" to doubt the numbers, Adams said, "From a health perspective I have no reason to doubt those numbers and I think people need to be very aware it's not about the deaths as we talked about earlier but the hospitalizations and the capacity."

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Fauci: "See what the healthcare workers are dealing with"

Contradiction Trump's claim on COVID-19 data, US top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said, "These cases are having an impact in a plethora of ways and people need to understand there is a finish line in sight but we have to keep running towards it. He further said that the deaths due to COVID-19 are "real deaths". 

During an interview with ABC as quoted by CNN, Fauci said, "All you need to do is go out into the trenches, go to the hospitals, see what the health care workers are dealing with." He further mentioned that the health workers are under a stressed situation in many areas of the country. "The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel who are exhausted right now. That's real. That's not fake," he added.

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These statements from Adams and Fauci on COVID-19 data comes after Trump earlier on Sunday said that the record-breaking numbers of new cases, nearly 300,000 in the past 24 hours, are exaggerated due to the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) method of counting. The outgoing President tweeted, "the number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)'s the ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low."

He added, "'When in doubt, call it Covid.' Fake News!" According to Johns Hopkins University, the US has the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the country has recorded over 21,113,528 positive cases, out of which 12,436,958 have successfully recovered while 360,078 died. Currently, the total number of active Coronavirus cases in the US is 8,316,492. 

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