White House praises its own virus response as cases in US hit record high

As the COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of slowing, Donald Trump is declaring victory.

On Monday, the seven-day average for new coronavirus cases surged 30% higher than a week before. On Wednesday, the nation broke its previous record for most new cases in a day, with 36,880. Hospitals in hot spots are running out of beds, and more than half of states are seeing increasing numbers of cases.

The Trump administration has spent the week praising itself for a job well done.

The Washington Post reported that Mike Pence had told Republican senators on Wednesday to pay attention to “encouraging signs,” such as the fact that cases were only increasing in 12 states. The Post debunked this false claim, noting the number of states with increasing infection rates was actually much higher.

“We did a great job on CoronaVirus, including the very early ban on China, Ventilator production, and Testing, which is by far the most, and best, in the World. We saved millions of U.S. lives.! Yet the Fake News refuses to acknowledge this in a positive way,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “But they do give Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is with us in all ways, a very high 72% Approval Rating. So, if he is in charge along with V.P. etc., and with us doing all of these really good things, why doesn’t the Lamestream Media treat us as they should? Answer: Because they are Fake News!”

“We are doing a great job. We have never been credited for it. We’re doing the best testing job anywhere in the world. We’re doing the best ventilator job anywhere in the world,” Trump bragged to reporters that same day. “We’re now supplying ventilators to the entire world. Nobody else has done that. Nobody else — people don’t — countries don’t have ventilators. They call the United States. We’ve done a great job. We have not been given credit for it.”

Trump also retweeted a video posted by his campaign on Tuesday in which he claimed that “we prevented a coronavirus catastrophe at the Southern Border.”

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the Trump administration has considered ending his emergency declarations for the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the number of cases surges.

And while Texas has repeatedly seen new daily records for numbers of coronavirus cases in the past week, the Trump administration confirmed it would end federal funding for 13 testing sites at the end of June — including six in Texas.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.