Meadows says White House is ‘hopeful’ it can announce new coronavirus therapies ‘in the coming days’

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the administration is “hopeful” it can announce new therapies to treat the coronavirus “in the coming days.”

Meadows told ABC’s “This Week” that the White House has been “working around the clock,” with a focus on COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines and mitigation therapies 

“The president has been very clear — whatever amount of money and whatever amount of time needs to be invested, we’re doing that,” the White House chief of staff said.

“We’re hopeful that with some of the breakthrough technology on therapeutics that we’ll be able to announce some new therapies in the coming days,” he added. 

On mitigating COVID-19 in the U.S., White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tells @gstephanopoulos: “We’re hopeful that with some of the breakthrough technology on therapeutics that we’ll be able to announce some new therapies in the coming days.” https://t.co/qxICVVlxra pic.twitter.com/hvVUDl3Lj0

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 26, 2020

The former North Carolina representative defended the White House’s actions during the pandemic after host George Stephanopoulos asked whether it could have done more to control the outbreak. 

“We actually took unprecedented steps. Not only did the president shut down travel from China and Europe long before even the medical experts were suggesting we should do so, and then we shut down the economy to try to mitigate the damage,” Meadows said. 

“We’re not gonna have a solution to this,” he said. “It’s not masks. It’s not shutting down the economy. Hopefully it is American ingenuity that will allow for therapies and vaccines to ultimately conquer this.”

Pressed by @gstephanopoulos whether the WH could’ve done more to control COVID-19, WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says “We took unprecedented steps… hopefully it is Ameican ingenuity that will allow for therapies and vaccines to ultimately conquer this.” https://t.co/qxICVVlxra pic.twitter.com/vvbF5zgOhH

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 26, 2020

Meadows’s comments come after President Trump acknowledged last week that the virus will “get worse before it gets better,” a change in tone after the president had downplayed the case surges in states such as Florida and Texas.

{mosads}Last week, the U.S. surpassed 4 million COVID-19 infections, reaching more than 4.1 million cases and at least 146,484 deaths by Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The administration made its largest investment in “Operation Warp Speed,” the vaccine development effort, last week by funneling almost $2 billion to Pfizer and a smaller German biotechnology company.