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.
Contrary to Trump’s Claim, A Pandemic Was Widely Expected at Some Point
Locations: International
Biden, Trump Wrong About WHO Coronavirus Tests
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.
Dems Misconstrue Trump Budget Remarks
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.
Trump’s Statements About the Coronavirus
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.
Q&A on the Coronavirus Pandemic
We answer some key questions about what is known so far about the outbreak and the virus.
Viral Posts Falsely Align Viruses to Election Years
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.
Infographic on Facebook Distorts Comparative Facts on Viruses
A misleading chart being spread on Facebook, erroneously dubbing the new coronavirus the “least deadly virus,” contains outdated information about the coronavirus and erroneous information about the death rate of the 2009 pandemic of H1N1.
FactChecking Trump’s Coronavirus Address
In a short primetime address, President Donald Trump provided false, misleading and incomplete information about the new coronavirus and actions his administration has taken or will take to staunch its spread.
Viral Social Media Posts Offer False Coronavirus Tips
Posts are circulating false and misleading tips on social media — in some cases wrongly attributed to Stanford University — about how people can monitor and avoid the coronavirus.
False Claim About CDC’s Global Anti-Pandemic Work
As the COVID-19 disease caused by the new coronavirus has spread around the world, a number of politicians, news organizations and public figures have made the false claim that the Trump administration cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s anti-pandemic work in over 40 countries to just 10.