Attacks at the Democratic National Convention claiming President Donald Trump is a danger to public health ignore the facts before the global coronavirus pandemic, according to Assistant Secretary for Health, Adm. Brett Giroir, M.D., to Newsmax TV.
"A strong economy means strong public health," Giroir, the coronavirus task force testing czar, told Thursday's "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"That's why the death rate plummeted during the first three years of the Trump administration – mortality rates went way down; longevity where went way up across the board – because we had a healthy economy. People had hope, people were back to work: All good things come from that."
Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrat vice presidential nominee, hit Trump for "turning tragedies into political weapons" in his acceptance speech Wednesday night, ostensibly doing the very thing she accused Trump of doing with the pandemic.
Giroir told host Chris Salcedo, "because of all the leadership of the president and the administration, we know how to take care of people better; we are protecting our elderly."
It is not just the Democrats who are conflating the tragedy of the pandemic as the focus of their campaign, but the media has been moving the goal posts on the task force's response, Giroir said.
"Whenever President Trump has another success like cases going down, they'll shift and say, ' well, hospitalizations aren't.' And when hospitalizations don't go down, or when they do go down, then they'll say, 'well, deaths aren't.'
"They don't understand it's a continuum – the first thing you do is reverse cases and then you reverse hospitalizations and then deaths."
Giroir cited data since July that "cases are down 22%, hospitalizations are down over 24%, our I.C.U. admissions are down by about 15%."
"And very soon, we will see mortality start going down as well – that is a lagging indicator," Giroir said, adding those are "indicators" the president and the task force's plan is working.
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