Kellyanne Conway thinks the 19 in Covid-19 means there have been 18 others (there haven't)

Kellyanne Conway –​ one of the most, shall we say, "unique" figures in Trump's team –​ went on CNN earlier this week to talk about the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump had said earlier in the week that he would be pulling funding from the WHO after criticising the organisation as "China-centric".

During her appearance, Conway (the famous inventor of "alternative facts") said that as this strain of coronavirus is Covid-19, there were 18 strains before. She said, “This is Covid-19, not Covid-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts and figures, would be on top of that."

On social media, users were quick to point out that Conway was wrong and misguided. The "19" in Covid-19 stands for the year it was discovered – another Twitter user also pointed out that the V, I, D stand for virus and infectious disease.

Some users emphasised that Conway was right about the importance of facts, particularly the ones she didn’t want to talk about – such as the Trump administration’s late action on Covid-19.

Other users asked whether this was a mistake Conway made all the time. One even suggested that she might be getting Covid-19 confused with a film franchise.

Trevor Noah, the host of the Daily Show, suggested in a segment that Trump asks Kellyanne Conway to “say dumb things on purpose so that he looks smart in comparison.” He also asked, “Does Kellyanne Conway also think that they’re called Blink-182 because the first 181 Blinks were taken?””

Other Twitter users asked whether Conway knew that she was wrong, but was trying to shift the focus from the Trump administration and make WHO look bad.