WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump in recent days suddenly acknowledged the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic and edged away from some of his most audacious falsehoods about it. That's not to say he gave the public an honest accounting.
Trump minimized the risk to children and those around them as he advocated reopening schools. He marveled again at the number of Covid-19 tests being performed in the United States even as the overwhelmed testing system crucially fails to deliver sufficient access and timely results.
And he claimed a low U.S. death rate from Covid-19 compared with other countries, though the global statistics contradict him.
All this while he canceled Republican National Convention events in Jacksonville, Florida, bowing to the reality that many Republicans were reluctant to go a state where the virus is out of control.
And his press secretary peddled false internet rumors that the "cancel culture" led to the cancellation of a cartoon about puppies.
Here is a review of some statements from the past week.
Virus testing
TRUMP, on the United States approaching 50 million tests: "This allows us to isolate those who are infected, even those without symptoms. So we know exactly where it's going and when it's going to be there." — briefing Tuesday
THE FACTS: This is False.
In many if not most parts of the country, people who manage to get a test can wait for days or weeks for the results because labs are overwhelmed. In the meantime, those people could be and in some cases surely are spreading infection. And many people who want a test but report no symptoms can't get one.
Some labs are taking weeks to return Covid-19 results because of the crushing workload from the surge of new cases.
"There's been this obsession with, 'How many tests are we doing per day?'" said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The question is, how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned?"
Children and Covid-19
TRUMP on young people and the virus: "Now, they don't catch it easily; they don't bring it home easily. And if they do catch it, they get better fast. We're looking at that fact." — briefing Wednesday.
THE FACTS: That is not a fact. He doesn't have the science to reach this broad conclusion.
His coronavirus task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, and other public health officials have said repeatedly that while children appear to get less sick from the virus than adults, the threat to young people and their ability to spread the virus are not understood because not enough research has been done on children and Covid-19 and its transmission.
Birx underscored the point Friday on NBC's "Today" show. Whether children under 10 spread the virus the same as older children "is still an open question" she said.
"We know that children under 18 are less sick, but there are some that suffer terrible consequences if they have underlying conditions," she said. "Children under 10 do get infected. It's just unclear how rapidly they spread the virus."
Trump has been pushing for schools to reopen and has threatened to withhold federal money if they don't, though he does not have that power.
While his assurances about children were unsupported, they were a step back from his rhetoric that portrayed children as practically immune to infection. "It's very unique how the children aren't affected," he said in early May. "Incredible."
U.S. death toll
TRUMP on the United States and other countries in the pandemic: "We've done much better than most. And with the fatality rate at a lower rate than most, it's something that we can talk about, but we're working, again, with them because we're helping a lot of countries that people don't even know about." — briefing Tuesday