Surgeon General Jerome Adams declined to condemn President Donald Trump on Sunday for calling Covid-19 death figures “far exaggerated,” but he did defend the numbers Trump attacked.
“From a health perspective, I have no reason to doubt those numbers,” Adams said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” responding to a question from host Jake Tapper pressing him on a tweet Sunday where the president stated without evidence that Covid-19 numbers have been inflated.
Adams said: “I don’t speak for the president. I speak for the office of the Surgeon General and the Public Health Service, and I’m focused on making sure people get the information they need and wash your hands and stay your distance and get the vaccine when it’s available.”
Adams also said that the death toll is not the only indicator of how damaging the pandemic has been to the country.
Trump tweeted Sunday: “The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. ‘When in doubt, call it Covid.’ Fake News!”
America’s death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed 350,000, with more than 20 million cases diagnosed. Both are by far the highest in the world.
In the fall, Adams had predicted that U.S. vaccinations would reach 20 million in December. The actual numbers are far short of that, with a total of approximately 4 million. Nevertheless, Adams said the vaccination program is off to a solid start.
“The good news,” he told Tapper, “is that we are seeing it quickly ramp up thanks to our state partners. The last 72 hours, we saw 1.5 million first shots reported. If you extrapolate that out and many are extrapolating numbers, that is 500,000 a day. I want everyone to know that over the next week or two is when we should be paying attention closely and making sure we continue to see this ramp up and I expect that it will.”
