During a press conference on Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump pushed back on a recent assessment from Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As reported by The Hill , Redfield suggested that the months ahead could be the “worst fall” from a public health perspective amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“No, I don’t agree with that,” Trump said. “If you look at these numbers, they are coming down substantially.”
The president referred to declining hospitalizations in Florida and claimed that many Americans are taking proper preventative measures to stop the spread of the virus. He also said that it’s incorrect to compare the current crisis to the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1917, which consisted of a deadlier second wave.
On Wednesday, Redfield said in a WedMD interview that the coming months would be particularly rough if Americans don’t follow public health guidance, and he highlighted the strain the medical system would experience from both the pandemic and the flu.
“We’re going to have COVID in the fall, and we’re going to have flu in the fall. And either one of those by themselves can stress certain hospital systems.”
According to History , the second wave of the Spanish influenza was particularly deadly due to a mutation of the virus that was spread by the movement of wartime troops. James Harris, a historian at Ohio State University who studies World War I and infectious disease, said that the Spanish contagion spread so rapidly largely from public health officials’ resistance to imposing quarantines due to the war. The publication also claimed that a lack of medical tools for vaccine development was another reason that the contagion was so deadly.
Per NPR , Redfield also used his recent interview to encourage Americans to get vaccinated amid the coronavirus crisis.
“By getting that flu vaccine, you may be able to then negate the necessity to have to take up a hospital bed. And then that hospital bed can be more available for those that potentially get hospitalized for COVID.”
Redfield noted that the influenza preparation could reduce the risk of hospitalization and said the preparation essentially protected children from dying from the sickness.
As The Inquisitr reported, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, previously predicted that a COVID-19 vaccine — when developed — would be met with widespread resistance in America. He noted recent polling that suggested one-third of the population is opposed to getting vaccinated against the deadly disease, which has claimed approximately 169,000 lives in the U.S. as of Saturday evening.
