White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Friday declared that a “second wave” of the coronavirus was not descending upon the country, even as cases of Covid-19 are spiking in more than a dozen states.
“There is no emergency. There is no second wave. I don’t know where that got started on Wall Street,” Kudlow told “Fox & Friends.”
Although Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, acknowledged he is “not the health expert,” he said he had spoken with the administration’s top public health officials “at some length” Thursday evening. “They are saying there is no second spike. Let me repeat that. There is no second spike,” he said.
“What you do have is certain spots are seeing a little bit of a jump up. Some small metropolitan areas are seeing it. The CDC and the health people are all over it. They’ve sent some task forces out to deal with it,” Kudlow added, partly attributing increases in Covid-19 cases to more widespread testing availability.
Kudlow’s remarks come as new coronavirus hotspots continue to emerge across the United States, with 18 states reporting an increase in Covid-19 case counts, including spikes in Arizona, Florida and Texas. Additionally, hospitalizations have been rising rapidly in at least nine states since Memorial Day.
Experts have described the uptick as a rebound from the first wave of the coronavirus in the U.S. rather than a second wave, but are cautiously viewing the nationwide protests against racism as potentially contributing to even greater levels of infection.
More than 113,000 Americans have died as a result of Covid-19 as of Friday morning, and the total number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has surged beyond 2 million. About 5,000 to 6,000 Americans are expected to die every week from Covid-19 from now until July 4, experts predict.
