President describes virus as ‘very smart’, ‘a brilliant enemy’, and ‘a genius’, on same day more than 2,000 US citizens die from Covid-19
The day coronavirus became the number one cause of death among Americans, US president Donald Trump appeared to confuse the viral disease with a bacterial infection which could be treated with antibiotics.
In a meandering address to journalists on Friday which lasted over two hours and veered between incomprehensibility and flippancy, the president pondered the nature of the deadly virus, which he described as a “very brilliant enemy”, and a “genius”.
Despite the grave threat Covid-19 poses to the global economy, Mr Trump revealed the deficiency in his understanding of how the disease spreads and how it may be treated.
Asked by a journalist about the level of testing for the coronavirus across the US, the president answered: “This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it.
“And they’re constantly trying to come up with a new – people go to a hospital and they catch – they go for a heart operation – that’s no problem, but they end up dying from – from problems. You know the problems I’m talking about. There’s a whole genius to it.”