House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is calling attention to the fact that the coronavirus disproportionately affects minority communities and is slamming President Donald Trump for his response to the virus.
“I’ve said it before if you’re a Black child, you have five times more chance of going to the hospital for Covid than if you’re a white child,” Pelosi said during a press conference on Thursday. “If you’re Hispanic, eight times more chance.”
She continued, “It’s sinful. It’s sinful that we have not addressed protecting the lives of the American people on the path that this president has taken.”
Pelosi slammed the president by referencing the debunked claim that Trump called the virus a hoax.
However, she also blasted him for claiming that the virus will “disappear,” which he has said on multiple occasions since the pandemic began.
Watch the video below:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi slams Trump administration's pandemic response: "It's sinful! It's sinful that we have not addressed protecting the lives of the American people." https://t.co/MJiC7roHTe pic.twitter.com/X9uw6f1Cma
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 29, 2020
Trump has repeatedly said that the country is “rounding the final turn” and that the virus will “go away.”
However, the country is currently experiencing a disturbing surge in new cases of the virus and is recording an average of 75,561 new cases per day over the past week.
As new infections continue to increase, the U.S. has recorded more than 8.9 million cases of the virus and over 227,000 deaths.
While the virus has impacted millions of Americans, data has shown that minority communities have been hardest hit. A September report in The New York Times revealed that while children are unlikely to die of the virus, minority children represent the majority of recorded deaths among children.
During her press conference, Pelosi noted that 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty, 17 million children are considered food insecure, and 23 million people are unemployed.
Pelosi warned that “the situation will worsen if we do not change our path.”
