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Trump Says Areas With Surging Coronavirus Cases Are 'Going To Be Fine'

In another unfounded bout of wishful thinking about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump said Friday that areas where coronavirus cases have surged are “going to be fine.”

In an interview with Noticias Telemundo, reporter José Díaz-Balart noted the recent increases in COVID-19 infections in the U.S. and asked Trump if the country was “losing the war” against the virus.

“We are winning the war. We have areas that flamed up and they’re going to be fine over a period of time,” the president responded, according to a transcript from Telemundo.

“It flared up in areas where they thought it was ending, and that would be Florida, Texas, a couple of other places,” Trump later added of the virus. “They’re going to have it under control very quickly.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to lead the world in coronavirus cases and deaths, with more than 3.1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 133,000 dead from the virus in the country so far. Recently, the U.S. has repeatedly set new global records for the highest number of reported coronavirus cases per day, hitting over 59,800 daily cases on Thursday.

Confirmed coronavirus cases are growing faster in Arizona, Florida and South Carolina than in any country in the world not including the U.S. This week, California recorded its largest single-day death toll since the pandemic began. In Mississippi, major hospitals are running out of ICU beds as cases balloon.

Trump’s statements on Friday are part of a pattern of the president making baseless claims about the virus simply going away. In May, Trump said in an interview that the virus “will pass, with or without a vaccine.” In February, he said the virus might “miraculously” be gone by April, and in March and April, he asserted without evidence that COVID-19 is “going to go away.”

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.