Trump dismissed coronavirus pandemic worry in January — now claims he long warned about it

In recent days Trump has announced new, strict guidelines designed to slow the rate of virus transmission, called for cash payments to Americans to alleviate their financial distress from the pandemic, and said he was contemplating other actions.

At the same time, U.S. deaths from coronavirus have increased to at least 85, with more than 4,660 reported cases. Worldwide, there are more than 183,000 cases of coronavirus, and at least 7,167 deaths.

Some news reports have tied Trump’s new stance on coronavirus response to a projection that more than 2.2 million people in the United States alone would die from COVID-19 if the government and individuals did not take radical steps to restrict interactions between people.

That projection was made by an epidemic modeling group at Imperial College London, whose lead author, Neil Ferguson, has said he sent the analysis to the White House last week, according to The New York Times.

“Was there a shift in tone?” the reporter asked the president.

Trump said, “I didn’t feel different.”

“I’ve always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic,” the president said.

“I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

“All you had to do was look at other countries, I think now it’s in almost a 120 countries, all over the world.

“No, I’ve always viewed it as serious,” he said. “There was no difference yesterday from days before. I feel the tone is similar but some people said it wasn’t.”

But during his Jan. 22 interview on CNBC, Trump claimed the virus was “totally under control.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/trump-dissed-coronavirus-pandemic-worry-now-claims-he-warned-about-it.html