President Donald Trump spent much of Tuesday reassuring the public that the coronavirus is under control.
“China is working very, very hard,” Trump told reporters at a business roundtable at the US embassy in New Delhi. “I have spoken to President Xi, and they are working very hard. If you know anything about him, I think he will be in pretty good shape. They have had a rough patch, but now it looks like they are getting it more and more under control. I think that is a problem that is going to go away.”
Trump’s comments are at odds with reality.
The coronavirus, or the COVID-19 virus, originated in Wuhan, China, and has killed 2,700 people and spread to 30 countries. There are at least 36 confirmed cases in the US, including repatriated citizens.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it expected the virus to spread further within the US.
“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press call on Tuesday. “We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad.”
Messonnier also said the agency was “preparing as if we are going to see community spread in the near term,” adding that the outbreak could soon lead to a “disruption to everyday life.”
Fears of a pandemic come after the Trump administration spent the past several years gutting the very government programs that are tasked with combatting such a crisis.
In 2018, for instance, the CDC cut 80% of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks because it was running out of money. Ultimately, the department went from working in 49 countries to just 10.
Here are some other actions the Trump administration undertook to dismantle government-spending programs related to fighting the spread of global diseases, according to Foreign Policy:
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