President Trump said Thursday that new outbreaks of COVID-19 will wane and that the pandemic is ending, in an echo of his failed predictions from the spring.
“There was a spike in Florida, and it’s now gone. There was a very big spike in Texas, it’s now gone. There was a very big spike in Arizona, it’s now gone. And there were some spikes and surges and other places, they will soon be gone,” Trump said in Thursday’s presidential debate.
Trump made a similar projection in August during a devastating surge across Sun Belt states. He told reporters that the virus will “go away … Frankly, sooner rather than later.”
“It will go away, and as I say, we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner, it’s going away,” Trump said.
Healthcare providers in the Midwest, the latest hotspot, are gearing up for a tough winter. Midwestern states have recently recorded their highest case increases and test positivity rates since the pandemic began. Many of the states fueling the latest surge had not experienced an outbreak so severe until October. South Dakota, for example, has an average test positive rate of 35.5% and Wisconsin’s is 22.87%, according to COVID Tracking Project data.
Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned reporters Wednesday that “we are seeing a distressing trend here in the United States.”
Biden repeated his argument at the first debate that the 223,000 deaths were avoidable and a result of a flawed response by the Trump administration. Another win for the Trump administration, Biden warned, will lead to a “dark winter.”
“We’re about to go into a dark winter,” Biden said. “And he has no clear plan.”
