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Hahn never responded directly to the president, but continues to defend his work.

\"We're not going to rush something that's so important to get right. There will be no shortcuts to our standards for product quality, safety, and efficacy,\" Hahn tweeted this week.

Trump has often relied on advisement from radiologist Scott Atlas from Stanford's Hoover Institute. Atlas advocates for the idea of allowing the virus to spread rapidly among healthy populations while shielding more vulnerable groups -- an idea that the nation's top public health experts say is nearly impossible and would result in unacceptable death tolls.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly shot down the idea of trying to embrace \"herd immunity\" without a vaccine as \"nonsense.\"

He warned this week the nation could be on track to hit 100,000 cases a day and half a million deaths by February unless the country takes the virus more seriously.

\"PHOTO:
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
PHOTO: Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, Response coordinator for White House Coronavirus Task Force Deborah Birx and CDC Director Robert R. Redfield attend the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus.
>

As a career employee who has served across multiple administrations, Fauci could not be pushed out easily by Trump.

\"We've got to work together as a country. We've all got to be on the same page; we've got to pull together to do something about this,\" he said in an interview this week with Rolling Stone editor Jeff Goodell.

The split viewpoints come as the numbers in the U.S. are grim. There are 43 states and territories on an upward trajectory with cases, while a quarter of the nation's hospitals report that 80% of beds in intensive care units are filled.

On deaths -- the same day Donald Trump Jr. claimed the number fell to \"almost nothing\" -- 1,049 Americans died due to complications from COVID-19.

Public health officials tracking the epidemic say the total number of deaths -- at least 229,293 as of Friday afternoon -- is likely undercounted because many cases probably aren't being reported and people are going undiagnosed.

According to the CDC, the U.S. experienced more than 299,000 excess deaths this year compared to mortality rate in prior years.

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