“I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” Trump insisted last week, adopting a newly somber tone about the crisis enveloping the globe as he urged Americans to work from home and prodded the nation’s cities and states to issue restrictions to promote social distancing. "I've always viewed it as very serious.”
But his claim doesn't match his rhetoric over the last two months before the
Trump's statements came in a week of inflated expectations by him about an end game to the coronavirus crisis. He suggested that a drug to treat COVID-19 was at hand and that automakers would be able to manufacture medical ventilators “fast” enough to help fill an acute
Neither of those claims is true.
A look at the rhetoric and reality:
TRUMP: “I've always known this is a — this is a real — this is a pandemic. I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. ... No, I've always viewed it as very serious.” — briefing Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Not once did Trump describe the COVID-19 outbreak as a possible pandemic until after the WHO declared it so on
Trump also has described the coronavirus as a “hoax,” although he later made clear that he was referring to Democratic criticism of his handling of the outbreak.
Asked, for instance, by CNBC on
In February, he asserted that coronavirus cases were going “very substantially down, not up” and told
"It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” he added on
“It’s got the world aflutter, but it’ll work out,” Trump told a meeting of the
Two days before WHO’s pandemic declaration, Trump still painted a rosy picture on the coronavirus outlook. “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year,” he tweeted on
By last Monday, Trump was acknowledging the
TRUMP: “Ford,
TRUMP, on addressing a shortage of ventilators: “General Motors,
THE FACTS: No automaker is anywhere close to making medical gear such as ventilators and remain months away — if not longer. Nor do the car companies need the president’s permission to move forward.
Neither
Unless automakers can move with unprecedented speed, redirecting plants to make completely different products will take a long time — possibly too long to help with medical gear shortages.
Any manufacturing at
“We’re looking at feasibility,”
TRUMP: “We're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that's where the FDA has been so great. They — they've gone through the approval process. It's been approved.” — briefing Thursday.
THE FACTS: It's not true that a new drug has been approved and is about ready to ship out.
The drug in question, known chemically as chloroquine, has been available for decades to treat the mosquito-borne illness malaria. Technically, doctors can already prescribe the drug to patients with COVID-19, a practice known as off-label prescribing. But Trump falsely suggested that the FDA had just cleared the drug specifically for the viral pandemic. That would mean that the drug had met the
Minutes later, the FDA commissioner, Dr.
Drug trials typically require hundreds or thousands of patients and, even when accelerated, take weeks or months to complete. In his remarks, Hahn warned against giving patients “false hope” before drugs are fully vetted.
While chloroquine has shown promise in preliminary laboratory studies, some experts are skeptical it will prove effective in human testing.
“I think it could be a game changer, and maybe not,” Trump said, discussing the drug.
But the FDA reiterated in a statement hours after Trump's remarks that there are “no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19.”
TRUMP: “If chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine works, or any of the other things that they're looking at that are not quite as far out ... your numbers are going to come down very rapidly.” — briefing Thursday.
THE FACTS: The drugs he is referring to are for treatment in patients already infected. That doesn't prevent spread of the virus. One study is testing chloroquine to try to protect health care workers at highest risk of infection, because a vaccine is probably a year or more away. It's too early to invest great hope in that or other drugs.
TRUMP, on using the malaria drug for COVID-19: "There's tremendous promise based on the results and other tests. There's tremendous promise. — briefing Thursday.
THE FACTS: “No. The answer ... is no.” That was the response Friday from Dr.
He went on to say that hopes for the drug are based on “anecdotal” information. "It was not done in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.”
TRUMP: “Today, I'm also announcing that the
THE FACTS: His assurance about renters is misleading, Most renters are not protected from being evicted if they cannot make their payments through April.
Under HUD's plan for the pandemic, foreclosures and evictions would stop for 60 days on single-family homes with loans through the
Krisher reported from
EDITOR'S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.
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