A Trump administration economic adviser with no experience in epidemiology created a coronavirus model that predicted deaths from the virus dropping to near zero by May 15, the Washington Post reported. The model offers an extremely optimistic prediction that no others have shown.
The adviser who created the model, Kevin Hassett, has denied it plays a role in decisions related to the virus. “I have never, ever said that that’s my projection of what the death count was going to be, and no administration policy has been influenced by my projections,” he told the Post.
However, according to a Post report, Trump and his aides used that model to justify plans to start reopening the economy. White House officials, like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were reported to have relied on it because it “affirmed their own skepticism about the severity of the virus and bolstered their case to shift the focus to the economy, which they firmly believed would determine whether Trump wins a second term,” the Post reported. Continue reading.