Day 1,162: Exactly one month from Trump claiming U.S. would soon have ‘close to zero’ coronavirus cases, U.S. has most in the world

The timeline of Donald Trump’s coronavirus response will forever be a horrific stain on his presidency. His actions — or lack thereof — will have led to far more American illnesses and deaths than if a response had been timely and thorough, to say nothing about the collapse of the economy it caused.

As of Thursday, the U.S. leads the world in number of infected residents, with more than 82,000 people testing positive. That’s true despite a testing protocol that has been wholly insufficient since the outbreak began, meaning the true total is likely far higher.

What makes that 82,000-person figure so staggering is that exactly a month ago, on February 26, Trump swore that the number of infected people in the U.S. would be “close to zero” before patting himself on the back for “a pretty good job we’ve done.”

His press conference a month ago is just a drop in the bucket of times Trump has said the U.S. had the coronavirus situation under control.

The U.S. is currently experiencing exponential growth in the number of cases. The situation is only going to get far, far worse without drastic measures being taken immediately.

Meanwhile, Trump seems content to continue to pretend that this is all a game where, as usual, he doesn’t actually do anything.

1,162 days in, 300 to go

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