In an appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back on President Donald Trump’s false claims that the U.S. coronavirus death toll is “exaggerated.” “The numbers are real,” he said, adding that people can “go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths.” Fauci also highlighted the steps that need to be taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 after a holiday season spike in cases, which include doubling down on physical distancing and sanitization measures. The United States has lost more than 345,000 lives from COVID-19 to date, equal to one in every 950 Americans, and ranks 16th in national per capita coronavirus deaths in the world. Meanwhile, the tally of known U.S. infections reached another sobering milestone on Friday, surpassing 20 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, and the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients exceeded 125,000, setting a daily record once more.