As US deaths rise, President Donald Trump appears unable to grasp the severity of the coronavirus outbreak, making multiple false claims along the way. Political fact-checkers have flourished under Trump, who according to one count uttered more than 16,000 misleading or false claims during his first three years in office. The pandemic has seen him add to that total.
Trump has repeatedly expressed surprise at the scale of the virus, saying it 'just surprised the whole world' and that 'nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.' However, evidence suggests the Trump administration was warned about the potential for a pandemic and given a plan to deal with it, which it shelved. A 69-page 'playbook on fighting pandemics' drawn up under the Obama administration was briefed to the incoming Trump team but 'thrown on to a shelf,' according to an anonymous official.
Trump's reaction has spanned disbelief and severe understatement. In February, he said the virus could 'maybe go away' and predicted it would 'disappear ... like a miracle.' This optimism has been contradicted by public health experts, including Dr Anthony Fauci, who said: 'You don't make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.'
Without basis, Trump has claimed the US has done an excellent job in testing. In January, he said the situation was 'totally under control,' but six weeks later the US emerged as the global centre of the pandemic. Healthcare providers faced severe shortages of testing kits, with faults in the system and restrictions on who could take a test. Vice-President Mike Pence admitted 'we don't have enough tests today,' and Dr Fauci called the testing failure 'a failing.'
Trump's claim that he has always taken the pandemic seriously deviates from his previous comments. He has downplayed the threat, criticised concern as a 'hoax,' and suggested lifting social distancing restrictions around Easter, a timeline widely criticised as premature.
