Trump seems oddly convinced COVID-19 won't return in the fall or winter

Trump and Dr. Robert Redfield
(Image credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

The COVID-19 outbreak is still very much alive in the U.S. — nearly 30,000 new cases and 2,100 deaths were reported Wednesday, bringing the total to 842,629 cases and 46,784 deaths, according to counts by Johns Hopkins University and the COVID-19 Tracking Project. And there are serious concerns, evidently shared by President Trump, that premature efforts to lift mitigation efforts will keep the coronavirus active for weeks or months to come.

But at Wednesday's coronavirus press briefing, Trump not only spoke of the outbreak as if it were in the past but also repeatedly insisted it may not come back. "What we've just gone through, we will not go through — you could have some embers of corona and you could have a big flu system," but the coronavirus "might not come back at all," Trump said multiple times. "And if it does come back, it's not gonna come back — and I've spoken to 10 different people — not gonna be like it was."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.