Screenshot: Yahoo News
Two memos warning that the coronavirus could kill as many as 2 million Americans were put in front of President Donald Trump in January and February, but he says he did not learn of the memos until “maybe a day ago, two days ago.”
Those memos were first reported Monday by Axios.
The memos by Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro claimed the administration must take an aggressive containment strategy because COVID-19 could kill more than half a million people and cost nearly $6 trillion. Three weeks later he even expressed himself more sharply, according to Yahoo News, “as many as 100 million Americans could be infected with COVID-19, which might kill upwards of 2 million U.S. citizens.”
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Four days after the second warning, on Feb. 27, while briefing on the coronavirus outbreak, Trump said on the only 15 cases reported at the time: “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
According to AP, on Tuesday, April 9, during a White House coronavirus task force briefing, Trump said Navarro has no medical background or national security brief; he is an economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy for the administration.
Navarro explained: “I have a PhD. And I understand how to read statistical studies.”
Trump insisted on the pandemic caused by the “Chinese virus”, as he used to call it, is “invisible enemy.”
On March 19 he said: “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.”
The situation today in the US today Wednesday, April 9:
New York reports the deadliest day. Another 1,000 New Yorkers died in the last 36-hours.
U.S. death toll from the coronavirus approaches 15,000 (More than 14,700 people), according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 432,000 people across the country have been reported sick.
Globally, nearly 1.5 million people have been diagnosed with Coronavirus, and more than 88,000 have died.
