All the President's Lies About the Coronavirus

[Celerity]

An unfinished compendium of Trump’s overwhelming dishonesty during a national emergency

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/



In the 11 days since he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, President Donald Trump has repeatedly lied about this once-in-a-generation crisis. Here, a collection of the biggest lies he’s told as the nation barrels toward a public-health and economic calamity. This post will be updated as needed.

On the Nature of the Virus

When: Friday, February 7, and Wednesday, February 19

The claim: The coronavirus would weaken “when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.”
The truth: It’s too early to tell if the virus’s spread will be dampened by warmer conditions. Respiratory viruses can be seasonal, but the World Health Organization says that the new coronavirus “can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather.”

When: Thursday, February 27

The claim: The outbreak would be temporary: “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
The truth: Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned days later that he was concerned that “as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases.”

When: Monday, March 23

The claim: If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide “definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about” for COVID-19 deaths.
The truth: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that, in a worst-case scenario, 200,000 to 1.7 million Americans could die from COVID-19, The New York Times reports. Other estimates place the number of possible deaths at 1.1 million to 1.2 million. According to the CDC, suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. But the number of people who died by suicide in 2017, for example, was roughly 47,000—nowhere near the COVID-19 estimates.

Blaming the Obama Administration

When: Wednesday, March 4

The claim: The Trump White House rolled back Food and Drug Administration regulations that limited the kind of laboratory tests states could run and how they could conduct them. “The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing,” Trump said.
The truth: The Obama administration drafted, but never implemented, changes to rules that regulate laboratory tests run by states. Trump’s policy change relaxed an FDA requirement that would have forced private labs to wait for FDA authorization to conduct their own, non-CDC-approved coronavirus tests.


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