A Trump supporter at his North Carolina rally questioned the legitimacy of the deadly coronavirus and said it doesn’t exist.
At a previous Trump rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, one Trump supporter called the coronavirus a ‘nothing burger.’
So far, the coronavirus has killed 3,000 people and infected at least 90,000 people worldwide.
The United States confirmed six coronavirus-related deaths in King County, Washington, this weekend.
There are at least 91 cases of Americans sick with the virus across the country.
.@realDonaldTrump has a rally in North Carolina tonight before voters hit the polls tomorrow on Super Tuesday.
WATCH: @albamonica met one supporter who doesn’t believe #coronavirus exists.
Watch NOW: https://t.co/U4UZMHn7bF pic.twitter.com/2YBGEbDy2S
— NBC News NOW (@NBCNewsNow) March 3, 2020
One woman told Alba that she does not believe coronavirus is real or that it was the reason two patients died in Washington.
‘I don’t trust anything that Democrats do or say,’ the woman said, rationalizing that coronavirus is simply a liberal-based hoax and the product of “fake news.”
Fake news is often repeated by Trump and his supporters to deny facts.
Alba points out to the Trump supporter that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, as well as bipartisan agencies and lawmakers on both sides have recognized the validity of COVID-19.
Still, she did not sway from her opinion.
A second woman revealed she isn’t at all worried about the coronavirus because she is divinely protected.
‘We’re under protection,’ the woman told Alba reassuringly. ‘We’re under protection from Psalms 91 and God is out protector.’
She added that she’s happy with Trump’s response thus far and blames the media for supposedly inflating the situation.
‘I’m very pleased without president’s response so far. I think the media made it a larger thing than what it should be and I think they’re trying to incite fear and panic in the public,’ she said.
One man said that he does believe coronavirus is credible and that actions must be taken to ensure it’s overcome.
He said: ‘I believe this is a valid virus that’s spreading around the world and we’ve got to do something to protect ourselves.’
The man also admitted that while he did not feel comfortable being in the crowd of 9,000 rally attendees, he arrived to show support for Trump.
The man may have been confident in attending the rally in part by Trump’s assertion that attending rallies was ‘very safe’ at this time.
Since the coronavirus popped up in the Hubei province of Wuhan, China, in late December, health officials have been scrambling to put a lid on its rapid spread and determine what caused the sudden outbreak.
While the source of coronavirus is still being determined, lawmakers like Republican Sen. Cotton are pushing conspiracy theories despite repeated rebukes from officials.
On Fox News, Cotton suggested coronavirus originated from a a biological warfare laboratory in Wuhan.
‘This virus did not originate in the Wuhan market,’ Cotton said, referring to a belief that it may have spawned from a live animal market.
On Saturday, the department had reported the first death of a coronavirus patient in the United States, a man in his 50s who was living in Kirkland – the same city where the nursing home is located.
Eight of the 18 confirmed coronavirus cases in Washington state have been residents or workers at LifeCare.
The sixth victim was from nearby Snohomish county. Officials say at least four of the six people who have died were elderly and/or had underlying health conditions.
News of the additional deaths came after Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News on Monday that the disease had likely reached ‘pandemic proportions’ as 100 cases were confirmed across the U.S.
‘We’re dealing with an evolving situation. We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,’ Dr Fauci said. ‘If you look at multiple definitions of what a pandemic is… multiple sustained transmissions of of a highly infectious agent in multiple regions of the globe.’
Dr Fauci went on to say the U.S. might need to consider social mitigation, including closing down schools and not allowing events where large crowds are in confined spaces.
‘We’re not ready for it right now but we need to be at least thinking about the possibility,’ he said in the interview that will air in full on NBC Nightly News on Monday.
Trump and members of his Cabinet later met with Dr Fauci and executives of 10 pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Monday afternoon to learn ways to speed the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.
During the meeting Trump reportedly said he had been told a vaccine would be completed in three to four months but Dr Fauci later confirmed that any vaccine would not be ready to hand out for at least a year.
It comes after a New York doctor warned coronavirus cases in the U.S. will surge into the thousands by next week and the former head of the FDA claimed three critical weeks were lost in containing the spread of the virus due to faulty test kits given out by the government.
Health officials have been scrambling to get their own coronavirus testing kits up and running after getting stuck with faulty tests from the federal government that they said left them unable to diagnose people quickly.
State and local authorities are now also stepping up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew to 100across the U.S. on Monday, with new infections announced in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.
New York confirmed its first coronavirus case on Sunday as a female healthcare worker in her 30s who returned from Iran last week and is now being quarantined in her Manhattan home.
Florida late Sunday declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first two cases, while Rhode Island announced its two cases – two people who had returned from a school trip to Italy – had prompted the closure of a school so it could be sanitized.