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  • 2020-03-02 (xsd:date)
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  • Did President Trump Refer to the Coronavirus as a 'Hoax'? (en)
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  • On the last Friday of February 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in South Carolina and made comments during a speech in which he accused Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus outbreak that left many with the impression that he had referred to the virus itself as a hoax. Various news media outlets and personalities reported that he did so, including syndicated columnist Dana Milbank, who tweeted: Likewise, Politico ran a story headlined Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax.' And in an article headlined Trump calls coronavirus Democrats' 'new hoax,' NBC News correspondent Lauren Egan wrote: President Donald Trump accused Democrats of 'politicizing' the deadly coronavirus during a campaign rally here on Friday, claiming that the outbreak is 'their new hoax' as he continued to downplay the risk in the U.S. These prompted inquiries from Snopes readers who asked us to verify the accuracy of the claim. Trump held the rally on Feb. 28 on the eve of the South Carolina Democratic primary, which former Vice President Joe Biden ultimately won. During his roughly one-hour, 20-minute commentary, Trump hit back at his political opponents in the Democratic Party for their critiques of his administration's handling of a potential pandemic. Here are Trump's exact words on the topic at the South Carolina rally: In context, Trump did not say in the passage above that the virus itself was a hoax. He instead said that Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to it was a hoax. He muddied the waters a few minutes later, however, by comparing the number of coronavirus fatalities in the U.S. (none, at that point in time) to the number of fatalities during an average flu season, and accusing the press of being in hysteria mode: For his part, Trump later defended his comments by stating he was indeed calling out the Democrats' efforts to blame him and his administration for what they have characterized as an inadequate response because we’ve done such a good job. Trump did however downplay the scale of the virus and the danger it posed to the public. At the time he made his remarks, the U.S. had 57 confirmed coronavirus cases, 40 of which came from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which experienced an outbreak of the virus. And health officials were warning that the spread of the virus domestically was inevitable. The novel coronavirus infection has been a fast-moving crisis. Just hours after Trump's rally in South Carolina, the U.S. had its first coronavirus death. As of this writing (at the beginning of March 2020), six people in the U.S. have died from the COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. Globally, more than 80,000 cases have been identified and 3,000 people have died, while experts have warned the outbreak of the virus could become a pandemic. Although Trump made a reference to seasonal flu death rates, COVID-19, which was first detected in the winter of 2019 in Wuhan, China, appears so far to be more lethal. And because the virus is new, no vaccine or treatment exists for it. (en)
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