WH communications director Farah says science office's COVID statement was 'poorly worded'

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Beating virus and rebuilding economy is the ‘top priority’ for Trump: WH spokesperson

White House strategic communications director Alyssa Farah outlines the administration’s continued efforts to combat the coronavirus.

White House strategic communications director Alyssa Farah clarified a White House statement regarding the coronavirus pandemic on "America's Newsroom."

The White House’s science policy office was criticized for listing "ending the COVID-19 pandemic" as one of President Trump's accomplishments in a press release, which Farah said was "poorly worded."

"Cases are still rising and we need the American public to remain vigilant," she said. "This is the top priority of the president, defeating this virus and rebuilding our economy. But we are rounding the corner because we think that we will have a vaccine by the end of the year, and because of the president's leadership, we expect that we'll be able to massively deploy that on a large scale to as many as 100 million Americans by the end of the year."

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The Office of Science and Technology Policy statement read: "From the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Administration has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry, and government to understand, treat, and defeat the disease."

As of Wednesday morning, the U.S. had reported more than 8,779,655 coronavirus cases and at least 226,722 deaths, as several areas of the country struggle to contain surging cases.

"Does the White House — the president — believe the virus has been defeated?" host Sandra Smith asked.

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"No, absolutely not," Farah replied. "That was poorly worded. I think that the intent was to say that it is our goal to end the virus."

She pointed to Trump's leadership amid the pandemic, saying there will be more positive announcements coming soon from the White House.

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"We are rushing therapeutics. ... We've got remdesivir on the market that people are able to use. We've got monoclonal antibodies. We've got steroids that are able to be used to treat the most vulnerable. We have massive testing and the ability to isolate cases," Farah concluded. "We are in the best position to date to treat the virus than we have been at any time."