President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, falsely claimed on Friday that the coronavirus "is contained" in the US. Another senior Trump official, counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, made a similar though slightly less definitive claim, saying that the virus "is being contained."
Facts First: Experts say the US has not come close to containing the coronavirus. They also say the small number of tests conducted in the United States so far has prevented the government from getting an accurate picture of how widespread the virus truly is.
"In the US it is the opposite of contained," said Harvard University epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch, director of Harvard's Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. "It is spreading so efficiently in so many places that it may be difficult to stop."
"In my scientific opinion and based on the available information, the situation is not contained," said Aubree Gordon, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan.
"As many states in the US report an increasing number of cases, I do not believe it would be accurate to say that COVID-19 is contained globally or in the US," said Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the epidemiology program at the University of Delaware.
