Donald Trump claims coronavirus was caused by a ‘horrible mistake’ and China tried to cover it ‘like a fire’
DONALD Trump has claimed the coronavirus outbreak was the result of a "horrible mistake" in China after claiming he’d seen evidence the virus originated in a Wuhan lab.
The president added the Chinese communist regime then tried to cover up their Covid-19 blunder — but "couldn't put out the fire".
He replied: "Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn’t want to admit it.
"We wanted to go in, but they didn’t want us there. They made a mistake, they tried to cover it, like a fire… They couldn’t put out the fire."
He said the US government was now putting together a “strong” report on the origins of the virus, and how the Wuhan Institute of Virology could well have been involved.
But he said had he not shutdown the country, the US would have lost "a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher, it’s possible higher than 2.2."
The president also revealed he’d recently talked to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who he called a "victim of what happened".
"He thought it was over. It was vicious. He's a great guy and he made it," Trump said, adding that Boris had the "ultimate first-hand experience."
Trump referred to Covid-19 as "the plague" during the interview, but insisted it is "going to pass."
In another stab against the media, while seated just below the national monument, Trump claimed he's been treated worse than former president Abraham Lincoln - who was assassinated in 1865.
Timelines created by the show that through all the typical research and approvals, it would take around 16 years before a successful vaccine were widely available.
“If you want to make that 18-month timeframe, one way to do that is put as many horses in the race as you can,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine told the .
Experts at the – and will know if it's successful by mid-June.
Coronavirus Task Force Expert said that as the FDA moves with "lightning speed," .
Experts and the FDA take extra caution in approving vaccines at a quick rate.
In 1955, in what's become known as "The Cutter Incident," more than 200,000 US children were given a polio vaccine that was meant contain an inactive version of the virus.
However, the process which would deactivate the virus was defective, and more than 40,000 children ended up contracting polio, according to a study in the .
The incident left 200 children paralyzed, and 10 died.
Researchers at Oxford have said 100 million doses of the virus could be ready this year – if trials are successful.