Facebook posts make the unsubstantiated suggestion that the novel coronavirus is infectious in the air for “8 hrs,” and falsely claim that “everyone is required to wear mask everywhere!” There is also no requirement for healthy people to wear masks; experts say health care workers need them most.
President Donald Trump has been holding daily press conferences to provide the latest information about the coronavirus from the federal government, but his rhetoric has sometimes been imprecise, misleading or outright incorrect.
Over the weekend, the Biden campaign posted a video that claims the Trump administration silenced Dr. Nancy Messonnier for “speaking out” about the new coronavirus at a Feb. 25 press briefing. But the campaign’s support for the claim is awfully thin.
The Trump administration and Congress are still negotiating a coronavirus economic stimulus package that will provide direct payments to some Americans. But this much is clear: eligibility will not depend on whether Americans respond to the 2020 census, as recent social media posts claim.
At a White House briefing March 19, President Donald Trump said, “Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.” But that’s simply not the case.
Following a flawed rollout of test kits in the U.S. for the new coronavirus, former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have given inaccurate information related to the diagnostic tests distributed by the World Health Organization.
After President Trump said, “I don’t know anything about” the disbanding of a White House pandemic response office, the Democrats claimed that he “lied” and pointed to Trump’s earlier remarks about “some of the people we cut” as evidence. But those remarks were in response to a question about proposed budget cuts — not the anti-pandemic team in question.
President Donald Trump left the misleading impression that two drugs were “approved” for use in treating the new coronavirus and were available for “immediate delivery.”
A viral Facebook post falsely claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “wouldn’t release 8.5 billion for Coronavirus without abortion funding.” A House bill providing $8.3 billion in relief was already signed into law. The “abortion funding” claim is a distortion of a separate debate over a different bill.
Facebook and Instagram users are sharing a fake tweet attributed to President Donald Trump that suggests the president’s critics won’t get direct government payments to ease the financial burden of the coronavirus pandemic.