Trump speaks on U.S. COVID-19 case fatality rate
President Trump on Tuesday spoke about the United States' COVID-19 case fatality rate.
Video Transcript
DONALD TRUMP: Our case fatality rate has continued to decline and is lower than the European Union and almost everywhere else in the world. If you watch American television, you'd think that the United States was the only country involved with and suffering from the China virus. Well, the world is suffering very badly, but the fact is that many countries are suffering very, very, very badly. And they've been suffering from this virus for a long time.
We've done much better than most. And with the fatality rate at a lower rate than most, it's something that we can talk about. But we're working, again, with them because we're helping a lot of countries that people don't even know about. I get calls all the time asking for help, especially as it pertains to the ventilators. They need help with ventilators. They have to get them. They're very hard to get.
In April, the average age of individuals who tested positive for the virus was over 50 years old. Today, the average age is significantly younger. Hospital lengths of stay are almost half of what they were in April. So the stays are about half.
The rate of cases requiring hospitalization has been reduced. And mortality among those admitted to the hospital is nearly one half of what it was in April. We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot about this disease, how to handle it. The doctors have learned a lot. We've learned so much.
As you know, in recent weeks, we've seen a concerning rise in the cases in many parts of our south. You look at south, southwest, and west. This growth in cases first began to appear in mid-June primarily among 18 to 35-year-olds, many of whom were asymptomatic.
We're also facing the challenge of a significant spikes in virus cases across the rest of the Western hemisphere, including Mexico. Mexico's been hit very, very, very hard. As you know, the president, a great gentleman, was here two weeks ago. And they have really been hit hard.
Because we've achieved a nearly fourfold increase in testing capacity in two months, we're successfully identifying more asymptomatic and mild cases, some cases so mild that you really don't even treat them, some cases with children where they don't even know that they're ill.
