Coronavirus: Trump insists he was right that cases will ‘be down to zero’ – eventually

President claimed in late February that cases would peak at 15 thanks to government’s ‘pretty good job’

As the US’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases passed 1 million, Donald Trump repeated that he anticipates the number to fall to zero “at the appropriate time”.

Asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta how the country got from his prediction of zero to a million cases, the president touted the US’s supposed supremacy on testing and stuck to his guns.

“It will go down to zero, ultimately,” he said at the East Room press briefing. “And you have to understand, when it comes to cases, we do much more testing than anybody else. So we could go to some of these other countries – as an example, China – if you test, you’re gonna show many more cases.

“So we’re testing, we’re doing more testing than any other country in the world by far … So we’re going to show more cases, because we’re doing much, much more testing, double anybody else. Someone said if you add everybody else combined, that would be a number.

“And it will be, at the appropriate time it will be down to zero, like we said.”

In answer to another question about states relaxing social distancing rules in the absence of a vaccine, Mr Trump said that “I think what happens is it’s gonna go away”.

The president’s hopeful outlook on the future of the outbreak is not shared by Anthony Fauci, who serves on the administration’s coronavirus taskforce.

Addressing a webinar the same night Mr Trump restated his optimism, Dr Fauci warned that even if cases slow over the summer, the virus will inevitably return or resurge. “When it does,” he said, “how we handle it will determine our fate.”

Mr Trump made his original prediction at a press briefing at the end of February, when the US had seen only a few cases. “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”