US President Trump says coronavirus under control, 'It is what it is'
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"They are dying, that's true," he said. "It is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague.”
US President Donald Trump defended his administration's response to the virus and continued to press for US schools to reopen.
In an interview with the Axios news website released late on Monday, Trump again insisted that increased diagnostic testing in the United States accounted for the increase in cases, an assertion disputed by health experts who say expanded testing accounts for some, but not all, of the growth in cases.
"They are dying, that's true," he said. "It is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague.”
At least 155,000 people have died amid a patchy response to the public health crisis that has failed to stem a rise in cases.
With US deaths reaching a record 1,000 a day, Trump pressed the view of deaths in proportion to the number of cases instead of as a proportion of the population, in which the United States fares worse than other Western nations.
Health experts also call it a key tool in fighting the spread of the disease, which had been detected in at least 4.6 million people across the United States as of Saturday.