WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump told reporter Bob Woodward that the coronavirus is more fatal and contagious than the flu, as it continues to minimize its risks to the public, according to Woodward’s new e-book, “Rage. “
“I sought to minimize it. I like to minimize it, because I don’t need to create panic,” Trump told Woodward on March 19 on excerpts from audio interviews received through CNN.
In interviews with Woodward between December 2019 and July 2020, Trump discussed the risk of coronavirus with a point of detail that he had yet declared to the public, on February 7, that they were “fatal things” and “more fatal than his, even the intense ones. flu. “
While Trump discussed the risk of the virus with Woodward, he continued to guarantee the public that it was “under control” in the United States and would “disappear. “
Trump publicly has coronavirus to influenza, saying coronavirus cases and deaths were fine under the flu, but with the flu, “nothing stops, life and the economy continue,” as he tweeted on March 9.
He also told Woodward that he knew the virus had been airborne in February. However, in April, when the CDC began advising others to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus, Trump continued to wear a mask in public and only identified dressed in a mask as “patriot” in July.
“It’s airing, Bob, ” said Trump to Woodward in February. “It’s harder than playing. You don’t have to touch things. Truth? But air, you just breathe air and that’s how it happened. “