"Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. The doctor at CDC just talked about dusting off preparedness plans. But coming from you, it has more weight. Do you feel like U.S. schools should be preparing for a coronavirus spreading?
THE PRESIDENT: I would think so, yes. I mean, I haven’t spoken specifically about that with the various doctors, but I would think so, yes.
I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.
But, yeah, I think schools should be preparing and, you know, get ready just in case. The words are “just in case.” We don’t think we’re going to be there. We don’t think we’re going to be anywhere close. And again, if you look at some countries, they are coming down. It’s starting to go in the other direction.
This will end. This will end. You look at flu season. I said 26,000 people? I’ve never heard of a number like that. Twenty-six thousand people going up to sixty-nine thousand people, Doctor — you told me before. Sixty-nine thousand people die every year — from 26 [thousand] to 69 [thousand] — every year from the flu. Now, think of that. It’s incredible.
So far, the results of all of this that everybody is reading about — and part of the thing is you want to keep it the way it is. You don’t want to see panic because there’s no reason to be panicked about it."
He never said those 15 were going to be the end of it.
