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Trump repeats inaccurate claim ‘85% of people who wear masks catch coronavirus’

President denied downplaying mask wearing as he made inaccurate claims at town hall

Gino Spocchia
Friday 16 October 2020 13:31 BST
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Trump falsely claims 85% of mask wearers catch covid

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In a televised town hall appearance, Donald Trump repeated the inaccurate claim that mask wearers caught coronavirus more than those who did not.

The Republican president, who has downplayed the pandemic’s risks to the United States, told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that whilst he was “okay with masks”, one study showed that mask wearers still caught coronavirus.

"I'm good with masks. I'm okay with masks. I tell people to wear masks," he said on Thursday, and claimed that “people with masks are catching it all the time,”

Then, citing a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the president argued that the CDC “came out with a statement that 85 per cent of the people that wear masks catch it.”

“That’s what I heard and that’s what I saw,” he added, as the NBC moderator hit-back and said: “They didn’t say that, I know that study,”

In a statement, the CDC had written on Twitter this week that “the interpretation that more mask-wearers are getting infected compared to non-mask wearers is incorrect,” as the claim went viral.

“Even for those who always wear a mask, there are activities where masks can’t be worn, like eating or drinking,” the agency added about its study published last month, which did not find that 85 per cent of mask wearers catch Covid-19.

Instead, 85 per cent of coronavirus patients reported they had worn a mask often or always around the time they would have become infected.

That was close to the 89 per cent who tested negative and said they had worn a mask often or always.

Dr. Todd Rice, lead author of the study and associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, told NBC News that the research was “mask neutral” and could contain inaccuracies because it was carried-out via phone.

Still, Mr Trump told an audience member on Thursday that his opinions on masks had not changed since his coronavirus diagnosis.

The Republican president had avoided being seen masked in public at the start of the outbreak, and has more recently ridiculed his Democratic opponent Joe Biden over his adherence to US government guidelines on face coverings.

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