A member of the White House coronavirus task force on Sunday said he wouldn’t “get into who’s right and who’s wrong” when asked if he agreed with two widely disputed claims President Trump made a day earlier.Speaking in Washington, D.C., at an Independence Day celebration, Trump promised Saturday that the U.S. “will likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.”But Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner and a task force member, declined to back the president’s prediction during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”“I can’t predict when a vaccine will be available,” he told ABC’s Martha Raddatz.“I just want to tell you about FDA’s role in this. Yes, we are seeing unprecedented speed for the development of a vaccine,” he continued, stressing that the FDA’s approval of a vaccine would be “based upon the data and science.”In his Saturday speech, Trump also made a claim that Raddatz labeled “stunning”: that 99 percent of coronavirus cases “are totally harmless.” There is widespread disagreement, even among health experts, on the “case fatality rate” of COVID-19: the percentage of infections that lead to death. It is calculated at around 4.6 percent in the U.S., but varies widely around the world, from less than 1 percent in Iceland to 14 percent in Italy and in Britain. The cumulative numbers may reflect, in part, the fact that the first wave of infections spread widely among the elderly, who are at greater risk of dying from coronavirus disease. New cases are now rising among younger adults, who are more likely to survive.But there is growing evidence that even when it isn’t fatal, COVID-19 isn’t “totally harmless” to many patients, and can cause debilitating symptoms of uncertain duration, including fatigue, shortness of breath and organ damage. Related: Coronavirus in the United States "No health expert that we have found can back that up. Can you?” Bash asked about the purported 99 percent number. “It’s just too early,” Hahn replied. “It’s really important to stick to the question about the 99 percent that the president threw out there. I can tell you: It's not true,” Bash said, citing official estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. Hahn dodged again, simply saying he agreed with the CDC estimates — without saying he disagreed with Trump’s. “Is the president wrong?” Bash asked.“I’m not going to get into who’s right and who’s wrong,” Hahn replied._____Read more from Yahoo News:
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