How'd that prediction of "...down close to zero" work out for ya, you blubbery, brainless blowhard?

CORONAVIRUS


[h=2]‘It’s going to disappear’: Trump’s changing tone on coronavirus[/h] (This article is 8 days old, so, they've "missed" several more since then, but the one from exactly a month ago, mentioned in the thread title, is especially pathetic. What a moronhno:Loser!@#0face)(*^%

For weeks, the president downplayed the threat of a global pandemic even as others warned otherwise.








President Donald Trumps speaks to reporters about the coronavirus outbreak in the White House press briefing room on Tuesday. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By DAN GOLDBERG

03/17/2020 10:52 PM EDT


President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted that he had never underestimated or underappreciated the seriousness of coronavirus. But for two months, he and some members of his administration downplayed the global threat even as world events and government and outside experts made clear that the health and economic impacts of this disease would be dire.
Here are some of those comments.


Jan 22
“We have it totally under control. ... It’s going to be just fine.”
— Donald Trump




China had reported that there had been 440 cases and 17 deaths, a noticeable increase from the day before when there were only 300 cases and six deaths. Chinese officials are warning people to stay away from Wuhan, the province where the outbreak began.
Jan 30
“We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.”
— Donald Trump

The CDC confirmed the first person-to-person transmission in the United States. CDC Director Robert Redfield says “the immediate risk to the American public is low.”
Feb 24
“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock market starting to look very good to me”
— Donald Trump

While Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners that the “coronavirus is the common cold, folks” the World Health Organization reports nearly 80,000 cases and 2,600 deaths. Meanwhile the Trump administration prepares an emergency funding request from Congress and public health labs pressure the FDA to allow homegrown tests after problems with a diagnostic developed by CDC prevented its widespread rollout. The S&P, meanwhile, closed at 3,225. It would drop nearly 10 percent that week.

Feb 25
“You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are … getting better. They’re all getting better. … As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I think that we’re doing a great job.”
— Donald Trump


FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn says coronavirus will likely affect the nation’s medical supply chain. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, says an outbreak is inevitable. “Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” she warns.
Feb 25
“We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight. We have done a good job in the United States.”
— Larry Kudlow

The S&P ended the day at 3,128. There were 57 cases of coronavirus in the U.S. Three weeks later, the S&P opened at 2,425 and U.S. cases topped 4,000.
Feb 26
“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
— Donald Trump

That same day, CDC Director Robert Redfield said it would be “prudent to assume this pathogen will be with us for some time to come.”
Feb 28
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
— Donald Trump

Three days later, Tony Fauci, NIAID director, told CNN he was concerned that “as the next week or two or three go by, we're going to see a lot more community-related cases.”
March 2
"We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great companies and they're going to have vaccines, I think relatively soon.”
— Donald Trump

Fauci repeats that vaccines will take a year to 18 months.
March 6
“Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.”
— Donald Trump

Vice President Mike Pence, the day before, said “we don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward."
March 6
[Holding rallies] “doesn't bother me at all.”
— Donald Trump

Within the week, Trump canceled events in Colorado, Nevada and Wisconsin. Fauci recommended against large crowds.


March 9
“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on.”
— Donald Trump

Hours after the president sent that tweet, Santa Clara County banned large public gatherings. Two days later, the NBA suspended its season. The NHL, MLB and NCAA would soon follow.


[h=2][/h] March 10
“And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
— Donald Trump

Surgeon General Jerome Adams, that same day, warned that “this is likely going to get worse before it gets better.”
March 12
“It’s going to go away. ... The United States, because of what I did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point … when you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.”
— Donald Trump

That same day, Pence said “we’ll have thousands of more cases,” Since Trump tweeted, the number of deaths have more than doubled.
March 17
“Federal Government is working very well with the Governors and State officials. Good things will happen!”
— Donald Trump

The president’s prior tweet said, “Failing Michigan Governor must work harder and be much more proactive. We are pushing her to get the job done.” The day before, he tweeted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “has to do more.”
March 17
"I've always known this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."
— Donald Trump

The president said he has “always viewed it as very serious” and denied that his tone in recent days had changed. "I feel the tone is similar, but some people said it wasn't," he concluded.

I dont see anything wrong with any of those statements....What do you want him to do cause a big panic & say run for the hills youre all going to die ....You post this shit thinking everybody is as dumb as you are but they are not...

roadreeler57 said:

I dont see anything wrong with any of those statements....What do you want him to do cause a big panic & say run for the hills youre all going to die ....You post this shit thinking everybody is as dumb as you are but they are not...

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It would be one thing to say those things in order to not cause a panic, but in the background start taking action to produce/develop more test-kits, ventilators, medical supplies.

Doctors reduced to wearing trash-bags and reusing masks is not a good look and its all on Trump.

roadreeler57 said:

I dont see anything wrong with any of those statements....What do you want him to do cause a big panic & say run for the hills youre all going to die ....You post this shit thinking everybody is as dumb as you are but they are not...

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LMFAO
everyone knows that you are one of the dumbest fucks on this forum.

theDonger said:

It would be one thing to say those things in order to not cause a panic, but in the background start taking action to produce/develop more test-kits, ventilators, medical supplies.

Doctors reduced to wearing trash-bags and reusing masks is not a good look and its all on Trump.

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I get it everything is Trumps fault no matter what he does or how well he does.....If its cloudy tomorrow its Trumps fault...We are competing with the rest of the world for those items also....We have many companies stepping up to the plate...Companies that dont normally manufacture these items ...Like Ford using F-150 parts to make ventilators...My pillow making masks...They have found a way to use ventilators for 2 or 3 people at the same time ect...Malaria drugs ect ect.....Plenty of reasons to be optimistic...

thedonger said:

it would be one thing to say those things in order to not cause a panic, but in the background start taking action to produce/develop more test-kits, ventilators, medical supplies.

Doctors reduced to wearing trash-bags and reusing masks is not a good look and its all on trump.

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welch!!!!

This how Trump strokes you?

losers going to lose

Willie99 said:

losers going to lose

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Profound!

roadreeler57 said:

I dont see anything wrong with any of those statements....What do you want him to do cause a big panic & say run for the hills youre all going to die ....You post this shit thinking everybody is as dumb as you are but they are not...

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Absolutely correct here. Imagine if the past three years had been exactly the same for America, except with Hilary as president. We all know she would have been a horrible president, but the media would be loving her for doing the same exact things Trump has been doing.

TomGshotput said:

Absolutely correct here. Imagine if the past three years had been exactly the same for America, except with Hilary as president. We all know she would have been a horrible president, but the media would be loving her for doing the same exact things Trump has been doing.

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[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]I don't know about that. One thing for sure she would be pushing Midol use instead of Hydroxychloroquine.[/FONT]

Dave007inVegas said:

I don't know about that. One thing for sure she would be pushing Midol use instead of Hydroxychloroquine.

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What part don't you agree with, that she would have been a horrible president, or that the media would be in love with her?

If Hilary said "close to zero" a month ago, the media would not blame her at all for spreading misinformation, even though we know she would deserve the blame for this pandemic. If the stock market dropped 25% in one month, the media would not blame her at all, even though we know she would deserve all the blame for it -- as would any Democrat president.

TomGshotput said:

What part don't you agree with, that she would have been a horrible president, or that the media would be in love with her?

If Hilary said "close to zero" a month ago, the media would not blame her at all for spreading misinformation, even though we know she would deserve the blame for this pandemic. If the stock market dropped 25% in one month, the media would not blame her at all, even though we know she would deserve all the blame for it -- as would any Democrat president.

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[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Neither. I just don't think she would have done the things Trump did.

It would have more along the lines of Obamas H1N1 response. [/FONT]

roadreeler57 said:

I dont see anything wrong with any of those statements....What do you want him to do cause a big panic & say run for the hills youre all going to die ....You post this shit thinking everybody is as dumb as you are but they are not...

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Now, Twittler's own people warned about the virus, and yet, you "...don't see anything wrong." There's an excellent reason for that: you're a fucking moron.

Feb 26
“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
— Donald Trump

Jan 22
“We have it totally under control. ... It’s going to be just fine.”
— Donald Trump\

roadreeler57 said:

I get it everything is Trumps fault no matter what he does or how well he does.....If its cloudy tomorrow its Trumps fault...We are competing with the rest of the world for those items also....We have many companies stepping up to the plate...Companies that dont normally manufacture these items ...Like Ford using F-150 parts to make ventilators...My pillow making masks...They have found a way to use ventilators for 2 or 3 people at the same time ect...Malaria drugs ect ect.....Plenty of reasons to be optimistic...

Click to expand...

Feb 26
“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
— Donald Trump

Jan 22
“We have it totally under control. ... It’s going to be just fine.”
— Donald Trump\

Does it look like it's goig to be just fine NOW, asshole?

[h=1]Trump warns of 'painful two weeks' as officials predict up to 240,000 US coronavirus deaths[/h]





David Smith in Washington

,The Guardian•March 31, 2020






Photograph: Alex Brandon/APDonald Trump has warned America to brace for a “very, very painful two weeks” as the White House projected that the coronavirus pandemic could claim 100,000 to 240,000 lives, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Striking an unusually sombre tone at the start a marathon two-hour briefing, the US president defended his early handling of the crisis and displayed models that, he said, justified his decision to keep much of the economy shut down.
Related: New York's Andrew Cuomo decries 'eBay'-style bidding war for ventilators
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks. This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks.”

The US death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,800 on Tuesday, eclipsing China’s official count. Trump has been widely condemned for exacerbating the crisis by failing to prepare testing kits, breathing apparatus and other equipment.
On Tuesday his experts said their models showed between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus even if the country keeps mitigation measures in place.
Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus taskforce response coordinator, told reporters that models show a worst case scenario of between 1.5m and 2.2m deaths in the US “without mitigation”.
But with measures in place, she added, the “mountain” could be reduced to a “hill” that projects 100,000–240,000 deaths – still a staggering total. She stressed that the number could be lower if people changed their behavior.
She displayed a chart in which New York had by far the most cumulative cases, followed by New Jersey, then the other 48 states bunched together. Birx expressed hope that social distancing could prevent major outbreaks in those states.
Early mitigation slowing the spread of disease in California and Washington state “gives us great hope”, she added. “It’s communities that will do this. magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviour.”
Asked if Americans be prepared for the likelihood that there would be 100,000 Americans who die from this virus, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “The answer is yes. As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it.
“Is it going to be that much? I hope not, and I think the more we push on the mitigation, the less likelihood it will be that number ... We are really convinced mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us.”
He added: “We’re going to continue to see things go up. We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working ... Now is the time, whenever you’re having an effect, not to take your foot off the accelerator and on the brake, but to just press it down on the accelerator. And that’s what I hope and I know that we can do over the next 30 days.”
Trump eventually heeded such advice, and opinion polls, after previously declaring an ambition to restart the economy by Easter. He announced on Sunday that he was extending to 30 April the guidelines that urged Americans to cease social gatherings, work from home, suspend onsite learning at schools and more in a nationwide effort to stem the spread of the virus.
Trump spoke after another bad day for the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 400 points, or roughly 1.9%, to seal the worst first-quarter finish of its 135-year history.


But the president defended shutting down much of the economy, attempting to rewrite history. Trump, who in speeches and on Twitter has compared Covid-19 to the common flu, said: “A lot of people have said, ‘Ride it out. Don’t do anything, just ride it out. And think of it as the flu.’ But it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.”
And as the briefing wore on, more of the old Trump emerged. He made misleading claims about the early travel restrictions he imposed on China and Europe and, despite complaints from state governors, defended the supply of ventilators and other equipment.
Although public health experts raised the alarm early based on reports from China, the president claimed: “Nobody knew how contagious this was. I don’t think any doctor knew it at the time. People have not seen anything like this.”
Related: The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life
Trump denied his early downplaying of the virus had given people a false sense of security and dismissed critics who said he should be more willing to deliver bad news. “This is really easy to be negative about, but I want to give people hope, too,” he said. “I’m not about bad news. I want to give people hope. I want to give people the feeling that we all have a chance.”
And trying to put his own efforts in a positive light, he noted that without his mitigation guidelines, models show the death toll could have reached 2.2m. “You would have had people dying all over the place.
“You would have seen people dying in airplanes, you would have seen people dying in hotel lobbies. How many people have even seen anybody die? You would have seen death all over.”
The president added: “One hundred thousand is, according to modeling, a very low number.” But he also described the figure as “very sobering”.
Trump was asked if, as the Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has suggested, he was distracted by the impeachment trial in January. “I don’t think I would’ve acted any differently,” he replied. “I don’t think I would’ve acted any faster.”
In the wide-ranging session, there was also a question about a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who proposed that the coronavirus could be carried on droplets a distance of 27ft. Fauci responded: “This could really be terribly misleading ... That is not practical ... That is a very, very robust, vigorous, atchoo sneeze.”

Hindsight is 20/20....Trump didnt say anything inappropriate at the time it was said...Even the Doctors didnt know how to advise about corona because so little was known at the time....They just mentioned that in todays briefing...

roadreeler57 said:

Hindsight is 20/20....Trump didnt say anything inappropriate at the time it was said...Even the Doctors didnt know how to advise about corona because so little was known at the time....They just mentioned that in todays briefing...

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You're a lying sack of shit, and stupid, to boot, below are FOUR different stories that say his own people warned him, try again, scumbag. It's being reported that the projections for the US are now the worst in the world, gee, I wonder who is most responsible for THAT?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...us-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/trump-officials-coronavirus-127742

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/tru...emic-worry-now-claims-he-warned-about-it.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/




The only saving grace is that Lights is Dawning on Marble Head-HIS. If you could unplug your head from his ass for a moment, you could SEE that.

[h=1]CNN’s Jim Acosta: ‘This Was a Different Trump’ at Coronavirus Briefing[/h]Justin Baragona
The Daily BeastMarch 31, 2020, 6:00 PM PDT


https://www.yahoo.com/news/cnn-jim-acosta-different-trump-010039154.html#


https://www.tumblr.com/widgets/shar...as a Different Trump’ at Coronavirus Briefinghttps://www.facebook.com/dialog/fee...acosta-different-trump-010039154.html&tsrc=fbhttps://twitter.com/intent/tweet?te...osta-different-trump-010039154.html&tsrc=twtr
CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, known for his rough-and-tumble verbal battles with President Donald Trump, likely raised eyebrows among CNN viewers on Tuesday night when he praised the president’s new tone at the latest White House press briefing, claiming “this was a different Trump.”
Just days after pushing for coronavirus restrictions to be loosened by Easter so as to reopen the economy, the president admitted on Tuesday that at least 100,000 Americans would likely die from COVID-19 and Americans had a “very tough two weeks” ahead of them.
During the briefing, Acosta asked whether projections of up to 200,000 deaths would be lower if Trump had acted sooner, prompting the president to insist that he did act early. Though Acosta would continue to press him on whether he waited too long to take the pandemic seriously, Trump did not spar with his longtime nemesis, even noting at one point that Acosta’s question was “fair.”
Appearing on CNN later in the evening, Acosta told anchor Anderson Cooper that the president and the rest of the White House coronavirus task force delivered a sober message to the public that they’ll need to be prepared for a heavy death toll.
Saying this was the “most stunning briefing” he ever sat through, calling it “downright chilling,” Acosta said he had “never seen President Trump like this” and insisted he believes that the president is “scared right now” and everyone in that room could feel it.
After noting that he tried to ask Trump and the coronavirus task force members if a lack of preparedness resulted in the grim casualty projections, only to get mixed answers, Acosta then credited the president for seemingly understanding how dire the situation now is.
“The stark message we got in the briefing room this evening is unmistakable,” the CNN reporter said. “This country is about to go through a horrendous terrible experience, and I have to tell you, people may not believe the president when he says any of this, and I have been—you and I have been, you know, pretty critical of him from time to time.”
“Yeah,” Cooper replied.
“This was a different Donald Trump tonight,” Acosta concluded. “I think he gets it, Anderson.”
“We'll see,” a skeptical Cooper reacted.
The CNN correspondent wasn’t the only political reporter to come away impressed by the president’s perceived change in tone. “Trump sounding different today,” The New York Times’ Eric Lipton tweeted during the briefing. “Scale of death appears to have changed his tone, at least.”
Acosta saying Trump finally “gets it” comes after fellow White House reporter, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, blasted Acosta over his pugnacious and combative style, saying that while he’d defend Acosta’s “right to report” he doesn’t think “we should act like we are part of the resistance.

I dont trust your sources just by glancing at them......We are also testing more than anybody in the world did now so yeah it looks bad....1.1 million tests so far.....Abbott labs just invented a brand new test kit that gets accurate results in 15 minutes....A game changer....https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucej...ronavirus-test-for-hospital-use/#c6cdd0251117

roadreeler57 said:

I dont trust your sources just by glancing at them......We are also testing more than anybody in the world did now so yeah it looks bad....1.1 million tests so far.....Abbott labs just invented a brand new test kit that gets accurate results in 15 minutes....A game changer....https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucej...ronavirus-test-for-hospital-use/#c6cdd0251117

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Yeah, you took it all in "...just by glancing at them" that they're lying...all four of them. You're irretrievably stupid, not to mention, delusional. Still more evidence (on TAPE, schmuck) that the Orange Ape is starting to wake up and smell the coffee, but, the article also mentions:

Yet he could not resist for long. By the time the briefing ended, he had lapsed back into complaints about the impeachment “hoax” and renewed attacks on critics like James Comey, the former FBI director, and Comey’s onetime deputy, Andrew McCabe.



Trump Confronts a New Reality Before an Expected Wave of Disease and Death







Peter Baker, The New York Times



April 1, 2020


WASHINGTON — Five weeks ago, when there were 60 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States, President Donald Trump expressed little alarm. “This is a flu,” he said. “This is like a flu.” He was still likening it to an ordinary flu as late as Friday.
By Tuesday, however, with more than 187,000 recorded cases in the United States and more Americans having been killed by the virus than by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the president’s assessment had rather drastically changed. “It’s not the flu,” he said. “It’s vicious.”
The grim-faced president who appeared in the White House briefing room for more than two hours Tuesday evening beside charts showing death projections of hellacious proportions was coming to grips with a reality he had long refused to accept. At a minimum, the charts predicted that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans would die — and only if the nation abided by stringent social restrictions that would choke the economy and impoverish millions.
A crisis that Trump had repeatedly asserted was “under control” and hoped would “miraculously” disappear has come to consume his presidency, presenting him with a challenge that he seems only now to be seeing more clearly.


The lowest estimate would claim nearly as many Americans as World War I under President Woodrow Wilson and 14 times as many Americans as Iraq and Afghanistan together under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
That is a daunting realization for any president, one that left Trump now anticipating “the worst thing that the country has probably ever seen.”
A pandemic is not a war, of course. Trump did not choose to have a pandemic. But he will be judged on how he responded, and the reviews from many quarters have been scalding even as polls have shown rising public support. While he conceded the bleak picture more fully than before Tuesday, he continued to rewrite the history of his handling of it.
Despite comparing it to the ordinary flu and saying for weeks that it would pass, the president insisted Tuesday that he understood all along that it could be a killer of historic proportions. “I thought it could be,” he said. “I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible, and I knew it could be maybe good.”
Trump said he played down the seriousness of the threat because he chose to be positive. “I want to give people hope,” he said. “You know, I’m a cheerleader for the country.”
He said his friends in business were advising him not to react aggressively to the virus, presumably out of concern for what it could mean for the economy, which now faces certain recession.
“I’ve had many friends, businesspeople, people with great actually common sense — they said, ‘Why don’t we ride it out?’” Trump said without identifying them. “A lot of people have said, a lot of people have thought about it, ride it out, don’t do anything, just ride it out and think of it as the flu. But it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.”
The president said that whatever his critics say, he himself had not been riding it out, pointing again, as he often does, to his decision at the end of January to limit travel from China, where the first major outbreak occurred, a move that came as airlines were already cutting back flights on their own. Experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have credited that decision with slowing the spread of the virus to the United States.
But Trump cites it as if it were the only action that was necessary when specialists said the benefit of the travel restrictions was limited because the United States did not use the time it bought to ramp up testing fast enough.
The president did not explain Tuesday why testing was so slow, nor did he explain why he waited to recommend canceling large events, closing businesses and schools and limiting group gatherings until after governors began ordering it themselves. Nor did he explain why he publicly declared that the country could reopen as early as Easter, only to reverse himself days later, if he understood all along how bad the situation could get.
At the White House briefing Tuesday, Fauci was asked whether the death toll could have been limited below the minimum 100,000 now forecast if social distancing guidelines had been put in place earlier. He said it depended on whether the virus had already arrived in the United States and spread further than was known early on.
“If there was virus there that we didn’t know about, then the answer to your question is probably yes,” he said. “Now, the only trouble with that is that whenever you come out and say something like that, it always becomes almost a sound bite that gets taken out of context.” Fauci added, “If there was virtually nothing there, then there’s nothing to mitigate.”
All of which is why public health experts have said that early widespread testing would have been so important. “In a perfect world, it would’ve been nice to know what was going on there,” Fauci told Jim Acosta of CNN, referring to the earliest outbreaks in Asia. “We didn’t, but I believe, Jim, that we acted very, very early in that.”
Trump asserted that had he not blocked many travelers from China, the United States would have most likely reached closer to the maximum projected death toll of up to 2.2 million. “When you look at it could have been 2.2 million people died and more if we did nothing, if we just did nothing,” he said, then he and the country “have done a great job.” In effect, he seemed to be setting up the argument that any death toll below that will be a validation of his handling of the crisis.
Whatever the eventual number will be, the pandemic of 2020 seems likely to rank with the deadliest of the past century. The worst came in 1918-20 and killed about 675,000 Americans, accounting for many of the deaths attributed to World War I. Another pandemic in 1957-58 killed about 116,000 in the United States, and one in 1968 killed about 100,000. The H1N1 virus in 2009, for which Trump has assailed Obama for his response, killed only 12,000.
Trump and his administration have stepped up efforts in recent weeks, expanding testing and seeking to work with governors to address shortages of ventilators, masks and other medical equipment. The president has dispatched medical ships and Army engineers to help, and after flirting with an early reopening, extended social distancing guidelines until the end of April.
For much of Tuesday’s marathon two-hour, 11-minute briefing, the longest single public appearance of his presidency, according to Factba.se, which monitors his activities, Trump took on a more somber manner as the scale of the fatalities seemed to sink in.
He jousted to some degree with Acosta and Yamiche Alcindor of “PBS NewsHour,” two of his favorite foils, but he was more restrained with them than usual and avoided some of the more incendiary language he often uses.
Yet he could not resist for long. By the time the briefing ended, he had lapsed back into complaints about the impeachment “hoax” and renewed attacks on critics like James Comey, the former FBI director, and Comey’s onetime deputy, Andrew McCabe. “Did it divert my attention?” the president asked of the impeachment. “I think I’m getting A-pluses for the way I handled myself during a phony impeachment.”
Still, Trump, rarely a reflective person in public, mused about the human toll of the pandemic more than he had in the early weeks of the crisis because apparently it has hit his own circle. As he has in the past couple of days, he referred to an overwhelmed hospital in his childhood home of Queens and an unidentified friend he said had been hospitalized with the virus.
“When you send a friend to the hospital and you call up to find out how is he doing,” Trump said, “it happened to me where goes to the hospital, he says goodbye, sort of a tough guy, a little older, a little heavier than he’d like to be frankly and you call up the next day, how is he doing? And he’s in a coma. This is not the flu.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.


The numbers publicly outlined Tuesday had forced him over the weekend to reverse his plan to reopen the country by Easter, but they were hardly new or surprising. Experts have been warning of a possibility like this for weeks. But more than ever before, Trump seemed to acknowledge them.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” the president said, the starkest such effort he has made to prepare the country for the expected wave of disease and death. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.”
Afterward, he added: “We’re going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. But this is going to be a very painful — very, very painful — two weeks.”
Under the best-case scenario presented Tuesday, Trump will see more Americans die from the coronavirus in the weeks and months to come than Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon saw die in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.