Trump furiously insists he wasn't slow to act on coronavirus despite saying it'd 'just go away' in March

Donald Trump has accused the media and the Democrats of trying to “spread a new narrative” that he was slow to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Launching his attack via his favourite social media platform, the POTUS tweeted:

While it’s true that Trump implemented an executive order that effectively banned anyone from China entering the US from 31 January, he was still – as late as 28 February – saying that coronavirus was the Democratic Party’s “new hoax”.

This is despite the US reporting its very first Covid-19 case on 21 January.

On 2 February, Trump claimed he’s “pretty much shut it down” and then on 27 February, he claimed it’s going to “disappear one day – it’s like a miracle”.

He’s even previously claimed that it will go away in April “with the heat”.

Bizarrely, he said on 30 March that “it is going away”, even though numbers of deaths in the US rose from 368 to 456 between this day and 31 March.

In fact, a Pew survey conducted in April found that 65% of Americans believed Trump acted too slowly to the pandemic.

Trump’s claim that he reacted “very fast” to coronavirus drew wide criticism on social media:

While Washington Post journalist Glenn Kessler cited:

At the time of writing, the US has over 1.72 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and over 100,000 deaths.