The White House director of trade and manufacturing policy Peter Navarro claimed in an interview on Sunday that the Trump administration was preparing for a possible second wave of the coronavirus in the fall, even though he said it wouldn’t come.
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“We are filling the stockpile in anticipation of a possible problem in the fall. State of the Union. We’re doing everything we can.” Mr. Navarro told Jake Tapper on the CNN program. Notably, Mr. Navarro’s statement contradicts President Trump’s repeated assertions that the virus will “go away” and will most likely not last into the fall and winter.
What we know with facts is that the virus is gaining ground the more around the country as confirmed cases have risen 15 percent over the last two weeks. Cases are rising in 18 states across the South, West, and Midwest. Seven states hit single-day case records Saturday, and five others hit a record earlier in the week.
Then, in Harris County, Texas, which cut across most of Houston, more than 1,100 new coronavirus cases were reported both Friday and Saturday, by far the two highest daily totals in the area. Public health experts in Texas called for a dire outlook.
Trump administration latest reckoning with the magnitude of the health crisis follows the same day that the World Health Organization reported the largest one-day increase in infections across the globe. It said that there were 183,020 new cases, with Brazil and the United States accounting for the newest confirmed infection of the virus.
Reporting from a New York Times database, more than 8,899,000 have been infected with the coronavirus pandemic and not less than 466, 200 people have died from the disease.
On Sunday, California reported 4,515 new cases, setting a record for the highest daily increase in the number of infections since the pandemic began in March. Los Angeles County made up 47 percent of the total number of cases statewide, according to the California Department of Public Health.
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Also Sunday, Missouri reported 397 new cases and Oklahoma reported 478 new cases, which were both records. Across the country, the number of new infections has steadily increased during the past five days after plateauing for the previous 80 days.
At the same time, overall deaths have dropped dramatically. The 14-day average was down 42 percent as of Saturday.
Very soon, precisely by August 27, President Trump will deliver his national convention speech in Jacksonville, Fla., inside an arena of 15,000 capacity.
