The Trump administration has proposed providing direct payments to some U.S. citizens, beginning April 6, to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus. But a prank post circulating on Facebook falsely states that the government is sending out checks every week and claim forms are already available.
President Donald Trump said on March 17, “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” While it’s not possible to know what Trump “felt,” there’s no doubt that Trump had minimized the threat of the new coronavirus for weeks in statement after statement.
We answer some key questions about what is known so far about the outbreak and the virus.
Viral posts on social media claim COVID-19 is no worse than other outbreaks that have occurred in “every election year,” suggesting that the new coronavirus is being “hyped” to hurt President Donald Trump. But most of the dates cited to defend those conclusions about previous outbreaks are misleading or incorrect.
We launched a new Coronavirus Coverage page to help readers navigate our website and more easily find the articles they want to read.
President Donald Trump and other officials misleadingly suggested that tech behemoth Google was working on a screening website that large numbers of Americans could use to see if they should be tested for the new coronavirus. The website, however, is actually a project of Google’s sister company Verily and is initially limited to the San Francisco Bay Area.
The National Security Council is warning Americans of a “FAKE” rumor circulating on social media that falsely claims President Donald Trump will impose a nationwide “mandatory quarantine.”
A viral image circulating online is falsely advising social media users that gargling water with salt or vinegar “eliminates” the coronavirus. There is currently “no specific medicine recommended to prevent or treat the new coronavirus,” according to the World Health Organization.
A misleading chart being spread on Facebook, erroneously dubbing the new coronavirus the “least deadly virus,” contains outdated information about the coronavirus and erroneous information about the death rate of the 2009 pandemic of H1N1.
While debating 6 feet apart due to the coronavirus outbreak, the two leading contenders offered competing versions of the facts on several key issues.