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Dr. Ben Carson touted American spirit and tenacity in his forecast for the nation’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Housing and Urban Development Secretary and member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force spoke with Fox News host Martha MacCallum about the road ahead for the U.S. following the COVID-19 outbreak, countering state officials reluctant to reopen and offering an optimistic outlook for the “home of the brave.”

(Source: Fox News)

Carson’s remarks came in response to a question about the president’s suggestion that states are resisting calls to reopen amid the pandemic in an effort to hurt him politically.

“It’s sort of sad that everything is cast in a political arena these days when in fact we are trying to get the American people back on target,” the retired neurosurgeon told MacCallum on “The Story” Monday.

“We have to recognize that for every day that our economy remains shut down, there are businesses that go under, job losses that occur,” he added. “And you know, right now we’ve had a disaster. But we can still recover from it if we use our common sense and we use the things that we’ve learned about the virus and about its transmission to get people back to work.”

Carson argued that Americans “can stay shuttered and allow this thing to control us and when we finally come out, everything will be destroyed.”

“Or we can act like, you know, our tradition is, Americans tend to be innovative, they tend to be entrepreneurial, and they tend to be brave. This is the home of the brave, remember that,” he said.

MacCallum also asked the HUD secretary about the disparities in who has been hit the hardest by the virus, noting urban areas in big cities where the populations are more crowded.

“We have known about the disparities for many, many decades and many people have opined on them, but very little is done about it,” Carson replied.

“There’s no question that when you live in an area that’s crowded that may not have the best hygiene, where you don’t have access to health care on a continuing basis, where education is poor, where food sources, particularly fresh, healthy food sources are rare, you are not going to do well,” he explained.

“It doesn’t really matter what color you are, what ethnicity you are, you’re not going to do well in that setting,” he said, adding that “we need to develop all of our people.”

He noted that the president is taking a “comprehensive approach” to “look at all these things in a holistic manner with multiple agencies and get to the root cause and fix it so that it’s permanent and sustainable.”

MacCallum brought up the recent cases that popped up in the White House, as one of Trump’s valets and another West Wing aide tested positive for COVID-19, noting that now there is a call for wearing masks.

“Is that something that you think, given, speaking of crowded workplaces, that they should have done along time ago? Do you think they are doing a good testing program inside the White House if this is what’s happening?” she asked.

“There are hundreds of people who come to White House every single day. Many of them coming from various and sundry places. It’s amazing quite frankly that there’s only been that many people,” Carson responded.

“But I think, like everybody else, we learn at the White House too and are going to take the appropriate steps,” he said before pointing out the need for proper perspective.

“Yes, maybe three people have gotten it but what is the likelihood that it’s going to be fatal to them? Incredibly small,” he said.

“Sometimes I see people sort of trying to equate contracting the virus with some horrible outcome. The vast majority of people are not going to have anything close to a horrible outcome,” he added. “That doesn’t mean we don’t need to be careful. But it also means we don’t have to become hysterical about it.”

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Frieda Powers

Senior Staff Writer
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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