Former President Donald Trump has said that he is "very proud" of his administration's effort in Operation Warp Speed, a plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine produced. He also said that 100 million people might have died from the virus if it were not for his efforts.
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"I think if we didn't come up during the Trump administration with the vaccine, you could have 100 million people dead, just like you had in 1917," Trump said during an interview with Fox News.
Trump went on to compare the 2020 pandemic to the Spanish Flu pandemic.
"You take the Spanish Flu, 100 million people, up to 100 million people, died. I think we'd be in that territory," he said.
COVID-19 has resulted in the death of more than 616,000 United States residents, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Trump's administration purchased 200 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 200 million of the shot developed by Moderna.
"The vaccines turn out to be a tremendous thing," Trump said in the interview with Dan Bongino. "It's something I'm very proud of."
Despite playing a role in the nation's vaccine effort, the former president does not support making the shot mandatory.
"I really believe in somebody's choice, somebody's freedom," Trump said. "I'm a big fan of our freedoms, and people have to make that choice for themselves."
In an earlier interview with Fox News, Trump called himself the "father of the vaccine," saying he pushed the Food and Drug Administration to approve.
"I pushed the FDA like they had never been pushed before," Trump said.
He went on to say he got the vaccine done in just nine months when Fauci said it would take three to five years. He then encouraged those listening to the segment to get the shot if they had not already.
Trump also shared his thoughts on the upcoming school year, sharing that he thinks in-person learning is essential and that the time lost in classrooms since March 2020 will "scar them.
"You know, it's turned out computers are wonderful and all of that," he said on Fox News. "But one thing we've learned through college and school, undergraduate, everything, is that being in the school is much better than looking at a computer screen."
The Center for Disease Control recently updated their masking guidelines and recommended that all students this fall wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. However, Trump thinks that students should be in class learning instead of at home.
"The schools have to open. These young people are losing a big part of their life, and they're not going to recover from it," he said. "What they're going through socially, I mean, they are not dealing with people. … It's going to leave a scar on their lives. It's going to leave a psychological scar."
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