David Urban on President Trump’s Coronavirus Plan

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You heard, also, what Renzi said and you’ve heard what your own health officials have said, that we have to be led by the data, by the science, by the facts. And I think you have encouraged the president to do that too, let the experts talk. Because as you know and as everybody knows,  there’s been a lot of tweeting and a lot of, you know, Trump being trumping over this, frankly. Do you think that he has the message?

DAVID URBAN, TRUMP 2020 ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER: So, I do believe, Christiane, that the president has let the CDC director, Redfield, the surgeon general, Adams, Dr. Fauci and other experts lead. I think the president is trying to be somewhat of a cheerleader. You saw Angela Merkel. That’s what leaders are supposed to do, right? Calm and urge people to be calm. There is a sense of panic, as you know, in lots of people for fear of this, this virus. People need to, obviously, exercise caution but the level of panic that has swept through lots of places in America, you see these lines at grocery stores, at wholesalers like Costco, people, you know, queueing up for hours with this incredible fear. I think the president’s trying to align some of that fear. You know, in America, Christiane, this is like people that — I liken it to is the entire United States is going to be hit by a hurricane or a cyclone and people are preparing at that level. And so, there gets to be a great deal of panic, and I think the president is just trying to calm some of that panic and I think he’d be wise to just continue to push Dr. Fauci, the CDC director, as well as the surgeon general out front to deliver those messages of facts and just, you know, let’s be specific about how many people are actually infected. And we don’t know — what we don’t, Christiane, as you know, is the denominator. We know the numerator, how many people have died but we don’t know the denominator, how many people have been affected. There are people who are asymptomatic. And so, the severity of this coronavirus is really going to be really not truly known until we know what that bottom number is, the denominator. And is this more like SARS or MERS, or is it more akin to, you know, a really bad case of the flu?