Coronavirus: A problem unlike anything else Trump has faced

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51803890

From the outset of the coronavirus outbreak, Donald Trump has sought to play down its seriousness and overestimate America's preparedness. He said the spread was under control. It isn't. He's said that the number of cases may soon go down to zero. They haven't, and it was not the advice he'd been given. He suggested that people with symptoms should go to work if they felt well enough. They shouldn't.

He has also argued that he didn't want the benighted cruise liner, the Grand Princess, because it would add to the total of coronavirus cases in the US - when it's not his fault they were on a cruise liner. "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault," Trump told Fox News. His concern from this seems not to be preserving the safety of American citizens (the thing he swears an oath to do at his inauguration), but keeping a lid on the numbers by keeping those with the virus - literally - at sea.

Last Friday, he went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the epicentre of the fight against the coronavirus - wearing a Keep America Great campaign hat, and said that there were tests available for every American who needed one. There aren't. So far, only around 1,500 Americans have been tested - compared to over 20,000 in the UK with a fifth of the population. Medical experts in the US believe that the real incidence of the coronavirus is far far higher than official figures reveal. But there seemed something jarring about the president, in the midst of a medical emergency, pitching up at the CDC with a campaign hat on. Was he there as a candidate for November 2020, or the Commander-in-Chief at a time of great uncertainty?

Take Mr Trump's tweet on Monday morning as Wall Street was in freefall. "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"

But while common influenza is most certainly a killer, experts estimate that the coronavirus is markedly deadlier. So at the same time as the president is tweeting this, officials are on the airwaves saying the crisis is real, that Americans need to respond, and it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.