The United States is going to manufacture or purchase an additional 100,000 ventilators for Covid-19 treatment in the next 100 days, President Donald Trump told a White House press conference Friday.
Earlier in the day, the US surpassed 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, a day after leaping ahead of China to become the country with the most Covid-19 cases in the world, Sputnik news agency reported.
“In the next 100 days, we will make or get over 100,000 additional units,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
Trump also said the US could make ventilators for other countries such as UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.
The president said the drug hydroxychloroquine that is used to treat malaria looks like a promising treatment.
“Hydroxychloroquine seems to have good backing. It’s a malaria drug and a drug for arthritis. I hope it works. There are signs it could be doing well,” Trump said.
Trump thanked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approving the drug immediately and said they could even begin testing.
The president also expressed his confidence that the Boeing Company with strong federal government support would soon recover from its current problems.
“Boeing will probably need a hand and we’re going to bring Boeing back.” he said.
Trump also denied a Wall Street Journal report that he was going to suspend existing tariffs on Chinese imports for three months. He said the subject had not come up in his hour-long phone conversation with President Xi Jinping on Thursday night.
“Xi never mentioned tariffs,” he said. “That is more fake news.”
Trump said he would also have a conference call with experts on the state of the struggle against the virus probably on Monday next week.