Trump claims COVID-19 is 'going away' as Biden argues masks could 'save 100,000 lives'

President Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden offered dueling approaches to tackling the coronavirus crisis during their opening comments at the final presidential debate on Thursday.

Trump opened the night by touting his response to the pandemic, claiming that 2.2 million people had initially been "expected to die," quoting a worst-case scenario projection if the government had done nothing to stop the spread of the virus. Trump also downplayed spikes around the country, claiming "it will go away. We're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. It's going away."

Biden painted a different picture, describing a "dark winter" ahead for America if more robust action isn't taken to stop the spread of the disease. "Over 200,000 Americans are dead," Biden said. "If we just wore these masks, the president's own advisers told us, we could save 100,000 lives. And we're in a circumstance where the president still has no comprehensive plan."

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Biden appeared to be once again citing the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecast, which said as of September that "224,000 more people in the U.S. could die from the coronavirus by January, but with near-universal mask use the number of projected additional fatalities could decrease by more than half, or at least 100,000," CNN reports.

“I will take care of this. I will end this," Biden concluded. "I will make sure we have a plan." Jeva Lange