President Donald Trump says he doesn’t take any responsibility for the 50,000 deaths in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump’s comments came Friday during the signing of a $484 billion bill to aid employers and hospitals under stress from the pandemic – the latest federal effort to help keep afloat businesses that have had to close or scale down.
Over the past five weeks, roughly 26 million people have filed for jobless aid, or about 1 in 6 U.S. workers.
The confirmed number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States surpassed 50,000 Friday, according to a tally compiled by John Hopkins University from government figures.
The actual death toll is believed to be far higher.
The rising death toll in the U.S. comes as gradual reopenings are planned in several state and coronavirus testing continues to lag across the United States.
To date, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project, just under 4.7 million people have been tested in the country of 330 million people.
A lack of tests and supplies has hampered the U.S. effort from the beginning. About 193,000 people were tested on Thursday. That’s an increase from the two-week daily average of 163,000, but far less than what public health experts estimate is needed to get a handle on the virus.
Researchers at Harvard have estimated a minimum of 500,000 daily tests are needed, and possibly much more, in order to safely reopen the economy.
The president also railed against the Postal Service when asked by reporters if the administration would give emergency coronavirus aid to the failing system.
He said it was up to the Postal Service to raise their rates to help the system and he wouldn’t allow the Treasury Department to step in if they didn’t make changes.
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