Trump officials deflect blame for US death toll from coronavirus, push for economic reopening

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USA: debate on reopening 2:11

(CNN) -Two of President Donald Trump's top officials are now directly pointing to government scientists themselves and the pre-existing health conditions of Americans to explain the number of deaths from covid-19 in the country with the most cases of deaths and infections in the world. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested Sunday that underlying health conditions, even among minorities, were one of the reasons for the high number of deaths of Americans: almost 90,000 as of Monday. And Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, added to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC), from the Government, to its list of scapegoats along with China and the Obama administration. The White House has stepped up its efforts to reformulate the narrative of its own chaotic response to the crisis as it aggressively pushes to reopen the country, a vital process for the fortune of millions of people who have lost their jobs due to lockouts and their own political perspectives in November.

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The effort follows repeated initial denials by Trump that he ruled out that the virus would be a problem for the United States and claimed that his administration had it under control months ago. The United States accounts for about 4.25% of the world's population, but it currently has about 29% of confirmed deaths from the disease, and models used by the White House suggest that the tragic number could rise to around 147,000 in the early of August.

Azar seemed to indicate that inequalities in the US health system, especially minorities, were to blame for the level of death in the United States, and said the administration had forged a "historic result" by preventing the pandemic from overwhelming the ability of the hospitals. "Unfortunately, the American population is ... very diverse," Azar told CNN's Jake Tapper on the "State of the Union" show.

"It is a population with significant unhealthy comorbidities that make many people in our communities, particularly black minorities, particularly at risk here due to the significant underlying health disparities and disease comorbidities, and that is an unfortunate legacy in our health system that we certainly need to address. " Azar insisted that he did not mean that so many Americans had died because they were less healthy than people abroad.

But he added that the country had a "significantly disproportionate burden of comorbidities ... (including) obesity, hypertension, diabetes," adding that "these are proven facts that put us at risk of any type of disease burden." A patient has comorbidities when he has two chronic diseases at the same time. Azar emphasized that he was not trying to blame people because they had such conditions, and simply noted that it put them at higher risk for complications from covid-19. Azar's comments about the U.S. healthcare system sound ironic considering that the administration has repeatedly attempted to dismantle the Affordable Patient Care and Health Protection Act that includes protections for people with pre-existing conditions, even in a current case in the Supreme Court, and has found no alternative to replace it.

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Navarro, meanwhile, pointed to the CDC, led by Trump's designee, Dr. Robert Redfield, for the early failures in coronavirus testing, reflecting deepening tensions between the agency and the White House. "At the beginning of this crisis, the CDC, which really had the most trusted brand in the world in this regard, really disappointed the country with the tests," said NBC Navarro's "Meet the press," a business advisor recruited for the effort of the coronavirus.

"They not only kept the tests within the bureaucracy, but they did bad tests and that delayed us," said Navarro. The criticism comes when the White House, which had already sidelined CDC in public messages during the worst public health crisis in 100 years, faces new criticism for its failure to implement a robust testing and tracking scheme across the country. It could make the reopening task safer. CNN reported rising tensions between the White House and the country's main public health agency. A senior CDC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, responded to the White House, saying that the message about what the agency wanted was often unclear, prompting a sense of anger and frustration in his Atlanta headquarters. “This administration has proven time and time again that it has a problem with science. We are giving them science and they don't seem to want it, ”the official told CNN's Nick Valencia.

The big bet of the reopening

The new politicization of the pandemic came as the country moves from trying to stop the virus and track it down to live with it until a vaccine or treatment is found. Almost all states are open to varying degrees, although home confinement orders remain in some of the worst affected areas. There are some signs of hope with declining deaths in New York and some tentative signs of economic recovery emerging as businesses open up.

But Texas, one of the first and most ambitious states during the reopening, recorded the most new cases so far, and crowded parks and pedestrian walkways in other states increased the chance that the virus could find new footholds. The political battles and medical uncertainties that emerged over the weekend reflect the likelihood that a return to normality will be intermittent and without a clear moment of victory that Trump continues to declare imminent.

Still, the president, who urgently needs a rebound in the economy as he looks to the November elections, is becoming even more optimistic about his recovery predictions. During a call for an NBC charity golf challenge at one of the first unofficial sporting events after two months of confinement, Trump promised that normalcy was not far off, contradicting warnings from health experts and many governors.

“We want big, big stadiums full of people. We don't want to have 15,000 people watching Alabama-LSU, for example, ”Trump said, referring to upcoming college football games that generally draw crowds.

"We want to have huge crowds, and now, at this time, that is not what they are planning, but you never know what will happen. Things can happen very quickly, and we are looking for vaccines, we are looking for cures and we are very, very far from the future, "said the president. Trump also argues that the reason the United States has the majority of covid-19 cases is that it has evaluated more people than any other nation. His statement is correct, but does not take into account the fact that several countries have tested a larger proportion of their populations.

So far there is no proven therapy for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The president has predicted that his Operation Warp Speed ​​could have a vaccine ready by the end of the year. One of his top medical advisers, Dr. Anthony Fauci - whose warnings that schools may not reopen soon prompted a reprimand from the president - says a vaccine could take 12-18 months to develop, and even that would be a historically impressive timeline. Trump's push for a return to large crowds at sporting events may clash with policies applied by governors to maintain control of the virus even as they slowly begin to open their states.

"The idea of ​​having stadiums full of more than 80,000 people, strangers who unite in their differences, as much as we want to see that happen ... the health consequences could be profound and devastating and delay all the progress we have made", California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom told CNN.

Administration pushes for speedy reopening but concerns grow over Texas

Despite caution in states most affected by the virus, both Azar and Navarro said the time had come to reopen the country and tried to convince Americans that it is safe to leave their homes. "In almost half of the counties that report, we have not had a single death," Azar told Tapper. "Sixty-two percent of our covid cases come from just 2% of counties in the United States.

Therefore, these are very localized determinations, ”said Azar, while warning that local conditions needed to determine the pace of opening. Navarro, who did not back up his claims with evidence, said keeping the country closed would kill more people than if it were reopened. "We statistically know, based on our experience with China's trade impact in the 2000s, that unemployment creates more suicides, depression, and drug abuse," Navarro told NBC.

"But we also know this in this crisis, as we have basically closed our hospitals for everything but covid, that women have not had mammograms or cervical exams to detect cancer. We have not been able to do other heart or kidney procedures. And that will also kill people. "

But the uncertainties inherent in opening up the country - an imperative for more than 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs - while a virus that epidemiologists don't fully understand still continues to rampant, were underscored by the latest Texas data. The Lone Star state had its biggest one-day increase in new coronavirus cases on Saturday, at 1,801, according to figures from the State Department of Health Services. It is unclear at this time if the increase is simply due to increased testing or if the virus is spreading more rapidly. Most of the positive cases were among meat plant employees in Potter and Randall counties, according to state officials.

A further 785 cases were reported Sunday, the day before Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was scheduled to announce more reopening measures. But there was better news from New York. “Total hospitalization was reduced. Good news. Net change was reduced, intubations were reduced, and new hospitalizations were reduced, making it a good day, ”said Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“The number of deaths has decreased: 139. At a different time and place, if I had to give you that news, it would be incredibly shocking to people. Only in this environment it is not shocking and in relation to where we were, it is good news. ”

The coming weeks could be crucial to establish whether state reopens could lead to a further increase in infections or whether social distancing measures could allow for a decrease in orders to stay home and prevent overwhelming infections.