Infectious Disease Expert Pushes Back on Trump Claim: No, Virus Isn’t ‘Fading Away’

Infectious disease expert Dr. Tom Inglesby spoke with Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday about ongoing coronavirus concerns across the country and pushed back on the suggestion from President Donald Trump that the virus is “fading away.”

Inglesby told Wallace the Trump rally in Tulsa was “concerning in terms of public health risk,” given how it was a large gathering that took place indoors with people who came from out of town.

“And what I saw was that people were sitting quite close to each other, didn’t see very many people wearing masks. There were some people hand-shaking without hand sanitizer, lots of shouting,” he said. “All of those things will increase the risk of spread.”

Wallace asked if the rally has “the potential to be a super-spreader of the virus.”

“We have seen in the past few months around the world that indoor gatherings have been the source of most super-spreading events, and those are events where one person can give the virus to many people,” Inglesby responded. “So there’s an opportunity for much more spread in a short period of time, so I am worried about that. I know that many people in the public health community are worried about the potential for a big spreading event.”

They also touched on spikes happening in a number of states across the country, with Wallace bringing up comments by the president himself saying, “We’re very close to a vaccine and we’re very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics, and — but even without that, I don’t even like to talk about that because it’s fading away, it’s going to fade away.”

Wallace directly asked Inglesby, “Is the coronavirus fading away? Are we close, very close, to a vaccine?”

“It’s not fading away,” he responded. “The U.S. has more cases than it’s had in many, many weeks. If you compare us to other parts of the world, our numbers are on the rise, the European Union — last week we had 25,000 cases on a particular day and the European Union had 4,000 cases, so it’s not fading away in the U.S., it’s not fading away in the world.”

You can watch above, via Fox News Sunday.