Tesla’s Elon Musk Says Coronavirus is Just a “Practice Run”

According to new again daddy Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla who just welcomed a baby this week, the coronavirus pandemic is merely a “practice run.”

In an interview that aired on Thursday, Musk admitted that how the U.S. has reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic can be viewed as a trial run before a more deadly pandemic happens.

“At some point there probably will be a pandemic with a high mortality rate, something that’s killing a lot of 20 year olds, let’s say. This is kind of like a practice run for something that might in the future might have a really high mortality rate,” Musk said to comedian Joe Rogan.

According to Musk, the mortality rate of Covid-19 is much lower than estimated.

“We kind of got to go through this without it being something that kills vast numbers of young, healthy people,” he explained. The World Health Organization said in March that the Covid-19 mortality rate is 3.4% globally.

Musk has been very vocal about his opinions on how the U.S. has been handling the virus. Recently in a call with analysts in the company’s Q1 2020 earnings call, Musk said stay-at-home orders are “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights.”

On the bright side, the electric vehicle maker’s Chief Executive thinks people will come out of the pandemic with healthier habits, such as increased hand washing and mask usage, which he views as a silver lining. More vaccines and cures could be generated too as the understanding of these viruses improve, Musk also said.

Musk and musician Grimes had a baby boy on Monday and named it X Æ A-12 Musk. It was only in January that Grimes revealed she was pregnant and said at the time, “I feel like I was woefully ill prepared [because] I [don’t know] if pregnancy is as visible or discussed as it should be,” she wrote on Instagram.

“I just didn’t [really] understand what I was getting into. It’s been good too, but it makes working a lot harder. Good at writing and having lots of wild ideas [though], but anything physical is hard. I’m also way more emo and less capable of bravery in the face of haters online and stuff haha.”