Coronavirus mitigation efforts helped save more than 3 million lives in the United States, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday.
“It suggests that the United States also prevented over 3 million deaths, thanks to the efforts of President Trump and the American people” McEnany said.
McEnany was referring to a report published in the science journal Nature showing that mitigation efforts in 11 European countries saved millions of people from dying from the coronavirus disease. Authors of the study reported that lockdowns saved roughly 3.1 million lives. Members of the White House coronavirus task force took the findings to mean that similar lockdowns in the U.S. saved millions of people.
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“Another study found that the shutdown efforts prevented 50 million additional coronavirus cases,” McEnany said. “So those are two very encouraging studies underscoring the work of the American people.”
Every state has begun reopening after spending months under lockdown orders, during which the economy suffered the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Trump is encouraging people to continue reopening their businesses.
Since the beginning of June, several states that had been relatively spared from the coronavirus, such as Arizona and Texas, have seen spikes in new cases.
McEnany told reporters that recent spikes in cases were not a concern to the White House coronavirus task force.
“You’ve got to look in a nuanced way at each of these states — like for instance, Texas on is one of the places where they’re saying we’re seeing a steady slope, not a huge rise, but due to the fact that they’re testing in long-term care facilities and in prisons, and the more testing you do, the more cases you identify,” McEnany said.
Yet the rate of new hospitalizations, which shows that more people are seriously sick and seeking medical attention, has also risen. For instance, Texas health authorities reported Wednesday that 2,153 people are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus disease, marking the state’s third straight day of record hospitalizations.
The U.S. is close to reaching a new milestone of 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus. At least 112,441 people have died of COVID-19.
