‘Trump denigrating science’ as virus wreaks mayhem in US: Analyst

President Donald Trump is to blame for the US' failure to tackle the new coronavirus pandemic at its onset because he not only has no belief in science but denigrates it, an American academic says.

News ID: 449904

Date: 05 April 2020 - 20:01

RNA - “President Trump does not believe in science, he has denigrated science at every imaginable level, he has gotten rid of health positions that should have remained in place, people that would have kept on top of these things, would have communicated with other areas of the world, would have seen what was happening sooner, would have been unbelievably helpful,” Carol Duff, professor of nursing sciences from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said during a Friday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program.

“He does not want to be blamed for anything that has happened and is more than willing to blame other countries… President Trump came in to the presidency denigrating science, you can’t live in a world without science, and especially as we have seen now, you cannot live in a world without very good medical science. Our lives depend on it and had depended on it; now we see what’s happening.”

Asked about media reports exposing a lack of medical equipment and supplies in the United States and the Trump administration‘s failure to meet demands, Duff said, “I don’t think that the personal protection gear is extremely limited all over the United States but in some areas it absolutely is and this further compromises not only our health care workers who are with the very sick people or every sick person that comes in, but also compromises the health of those people who are ill or people who do not have COVID but are being evaluated because they possibly may have it.”

Duff made the comments as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause mayhem in the US, with the overall death toll exceeding 7,000 and the confirmed cases standing at more than 277,000. The Trump administration has come under fire from medical staff and Democrats for belittling the deadly virus.

Eric Feigl-Ding, epidemiologist and health economist from Washington, was the other panelist invited to The Debate program who also reaffirmed that the US administration had failed to realize the enormity of the pandemic.

“I think he dropped the ball a long time ago,” he said. “This epidemic has usually a doubling time of usually 6 days; the doubling time in the United States has now dropped to 2.5 days — 2 days in New York… it is just terrible response, terrible preparation and terrible policies that allow a lot of our reserves and stockpiles to be depleted very quickly.”

In New York, the US state hardest hit by the coronavirus in the number of infections and lives lost, the fatalities rose above 2,900 — which is on a par with the death toll from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

De Blasio, mayor of the most-populous US city, appeared on morning television shows on Friday and called for more federal help. He asked for 1,000 nurses, 150 doctors and 300 respiratory therapists as the number of COVID-19 cases in the city is expected to rise sharply next week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned last week that the global pandemic could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans, infecting millions of others.

The coronavirus, a respiratory disease known as COVID-19, jumped from wildlife to people in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and is currently affecting more than 200 countries and territories across the globe. It has so far affected more than 1,118,000 people and killed over 59,000, according to a running count by worldometers.info.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

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