MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Friday slammed Donald Trump for again questioning of the value of testing for the coronavirus, suggesting the president “maybe just literally doesn’t understand” how it works.
Earlier Friday, Trump had confusingly claimed that the COVID-19 diagnosis of Katie Miller, a press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, showed “why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great.”
The president noted how Miller, the wife of senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had “tested positive out of the blue.”
Trump then pondered how “the tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it’s good and then something happens and all of a sudden ... she was tested very recently and tested negative and then today, I guess, for some reason she tested positive.”
Check out Trump’s comments here:
A visibly exasperated Hayes rebuked Trump over his claims.
“First of all, she’s not a student who is studying and getting good grades and then had a bad test,” he said. “That’s not what you’re talking about.”
“It’s the virus. It’s the presence or absence of the virus,” Hayes added. “You can test negative and then later test positive because between those two, you get the virus.”
“That’s how the whole thing works. All of this,” he concluded. “What do you think we’re all doing here?”
The nationwide death toll from the virus now stands upwards of 78,000.
The U.S. has more confirmed cases (1.3 million) than any other country in the world. As far as the number of tests carried out as a percentage of the population, however, it stands at around 40th place worldwide.
The World Health Organization and public health officials have repeatedly stated that widespread testing for the virus, and tracing those who have come into contact with people who test positive, is critical to slowing its spread.
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