# Trump's found the cure to coronavirus! Stop testing! **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 15, 2020, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833 "2020-05-15T04:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MulderMuffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldermuffin/32/2862_2.png) [@MulderMuffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MulderMuffin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/1 "2020-05-15T04:13:20Z")
From a speech in Allentown, PA today: Trump > [@](#): > > And don’t forget: We have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s common sense. There you go, apparently testing is responsible for people getting sick with the virus. I knew he’d figure it out eventually. I mean, he is a very stable genius with all the best words. /s ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/2 "2020-05-15T04:24:05Z")
I’m guessing that was a strategy the Republicans have worked out. Get the talking points out there about how Covid 19 is no worse than the flu, how people die for lots of reasons, and how there’s a conspiracy theory to claim people died of Covid 19 when they really died from something else. And then cut back on testing to a bare minimum and tell people to get back to work. Sure a few million people will die as a result but if you’re not testing for Covid 19 you can’t prove they died of Covid 19. A single death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic and all that. I’m sure they sat Trump down and tried to explain this to him. They probably tried five or ten times. From his statement, it’s clear some part of it stuck in his head. But he didn’t understand the part about how he wasn’t supposed to say anything about it in public. ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/53a042/32.png) [@cornflakes2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes2)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/3 "2020-05-15T04:37:05Z")
i thought he already found the cure? Ingest disinfectants. You mean I’ve been doing it wrong all this time? lol On a serious note, he wasn’t saying that it would cure covid19. He was saying that if there were fewer testing done, you would have fewer cases reported (like China). He’s not wrong about that. Everyone seems to believe that China’s numbers are greatly under reported. It does seem plausible but we’ll never know the exact numbers. So more than anything, it’s just a numbers game and a visual one. It’s like asking how many criminals do you think America has right now? You’d only count the number of people in prison which is around 2.3 million in America. Does that mean there are only 2.3 million? No, if there was a way to find all the other people who never got caught or got away with it, the number might be more like 4 million or 6 million. It’s only what is reported. It doesn’t mean just because it’s not reported, more criminals out there don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![MulderMuffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldermuffin/32/2862_2.png) [@MulderMuffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MulderMuffin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/4 "2020-05-15T05:02:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m sure they sat Trump down and tried to explain this to him. They probably tried five or ten times. From his statement, it’s clear some part of it stuck in his head. But he didn’t understand the part about how he wasn’t supposed to say anything about it in public. This is probably exactly what happened. He really, really doesn’t seem to understand the point of testing in the least. Regarding Katie Miller testing positive for coronavirus he said, “This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great. The tests are perfect but something can happen between the test where it’s good and then something happens and, all of a sudden, she was tested very recently and tested negative. And then today, I guess, for some reason she tested positive,” Yeah, “something happened”. She got infected. It’s really no wonder he can’t grasp why Americans demand widespread testing. It’s because he doesn’t understand the purpose and concept at a fundamental level. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/5 "2020-05-15T05:33:57Z")
As I said in the concurrent Pit thread: > [@Kimstu](#): > > Nobody tell Trump about, say, New Zealand having tested over 200,000 people for COVID and having had fewer than 2000 confirmed cases (and no new cases for days now). > > Meanwhile, the US has tested fewer than 10.5 million people and had over 1.5 million confirmed cases. > > Test/case ratio in NZ: \>100 > Test/case ratio in US: \<10 > > Hmmm, maybe it’s not actually how much testing you do that determines how many cases you have, after all. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/6 "2020-05-15T08:30:43Z")
How long til we start hearing that the test causes the disease? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-found-the-cure-to-coronavirus-stop-testing/853833/7 "2020-05-15T08:49:53Z")
He’s been saying stuff like this from the beginning. He didn’t want the passengers to come off of the cruise ship because he didn’t want the numbers to look bad.