WH COVID Testing Czar Clashes With Trump’s ‘Rounding The Curve’ Claims, Says Rising Cases ‘Are Real’

Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Health Adm. Brett Giroir speaks during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on a review of Coronavirus Response Efforts on September 16, 2020. (Photo by AN... Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Health Adm. Brett Giroir speaks during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on a review of Coronavirus Response Efforts on September 16, 2020. (Photo by ANNA MONEYMAKER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Admiral Brett Giroir, who serves as the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House’s leader on COVID-19 testing, on Wednesday morning pushed back against President Donald Trump’s falsely rosy framing of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During an interview with “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, Giroir rejected Trump’s false claim that increased testing is the only reason why the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has spiked.

“It’s not just a function of testing,” Girior told Guthrie. “Yes we’re getting more cases identified, but the cases are actually going up, and we know that too because hospitalizations are going up[…]Those are real. And we do know deaths are increasing, unfortunately.”

“So we do assess that the cases are actually going up,” he added.

Trump has repeatedly claimed with zero evidence that the U.S. is “rounding the corner” on the virus in his effort to downplay his disastrous response to the virus, which has killed more than 225,000 Americans so far.

Additionally, the President keeps parroting one of his favorite excuses for the rise in recorded infections: Testing.

“Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST,” he tweeted on Monday.

Watch Giroir below:

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Notable Replies

  1. Walk back in 3…2…1…

  2. I have the feeling that Trump has been weakened enough that he cannot force Giroir to walk it back. Besides it’s most likely that Giroir doesn’t see himself in office for much longer, even if Trump wins he won’t want to be part of the disaster that will be coming this winter.

  3. Giroir is a lying sycophant and not to be trusted. From an NPR interview this past July:

    GIROIR: No, that’s not true because the technology has really caught up with where we are. By October - certainly by September, we expect to have 15 to 20 million point-of-care tests. That’s as many tests as we’re doing every month now. That’s going to dramatically reduce the burden. We just had another test authorized last week. And we’re going to be really leaning in on these point of care to nursing homes. We’re also doing pooling. We think pooling will be validated on a number of platforms within the next couple of weeks, meaning we can do five or even 10 tests for every one test.

    So yes, the demand will increase. We want to have 100 million tests per month done in this country by September, and I think we’re well on track to have that done with our point-of-care and other technologies.

  4. “It’s not just a function of testing.”

    When you’ve lost Brett Giroir …

  5. I heard Giroir once spoke to a registered Democrat! There is a photo and everything on Hunter Biden’s laptop about it!

    You can’t trust these guys.

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