In the U.S., there are currently 11 confirmed deaths caused by COVID-19 also known as coronavirus. Case rates are on the rise, with the virus infecting over 90,000 people worldwide so far. On March 3rd, the World Health Organisation revealed that the death rate of reported COVID-19 cases is approximately 3.4 percent, making it more deadly compared to seasonal flu which typically has a death rate under 1 percent. 

Today, President Donald Trump discussed the COVID-19 outbreak on a live phone interview with Fox News host, Sean Hannity. 

Trump told Hannity that he believes the WHO’s COVID-19 death rate percentage is inaccurate, and instead the number is actually a lot lower.

“I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number,” he explained, “This is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.”

He added, “When you do have a death like you had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, all of a sudden, it seems like 3 or 4 percent, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1 percent.” 

“But again, they don’t know about the easy cases because the easy cases don’t go to the hospital. They don’t report to doctors or the hospital, in many cases,” Trump said.

“So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1 percent.”

Notably, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Mike Bloomberg, and Bernie Sanders have all heavily criticized Trump over his coronavirus response, claiming that not enough is being done, and Trump is not taking the virus seriously. 

“The American people need a well-coordinated, whole-of-government, fully-funded response to keep them safe from the coronavirus threat,” Pelosi stated, “Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has mounted an opaque and chaotic response to this outbreak.”

During the interview, Trump went on to dispute the Democrat’s criticism of his coronavirus response, arguing that their concerns are politically motivated.

“The Democrats weaponize the virus against the Trump Administration, they weaponize anything we do, and yet if they did it, they would be hailing it, but they do weaponize this. They know what a great job we’re doing, they know we have the best in the world and we’ve really shown it, even when you look at the small numbers in this country, they’re very, very small,” Trump said, adding, “[Democrats] will always say no matter how good you do, if you found a cure and everything disappeared within 24-hours, they would say you did a terrible job.”

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