by Ayana Antoine ’20

The coronavirus very quickly spread from a country-wide epidemic in China to a worldwide pandemic in a matter of weeks. Understandably, this has caused a great deal of panic for millions of people as they try to limit social interactions while still doing their best to maintain some amount of normality. But this can be exceptionally difficult as leaders put out false information that only adds to general unrest. 

Since the beginning of March there have been dozens of false claims by President Trump regarding the virus. His naïve and self-serving understanding of the virus has caused him to make hasty generalizations whether he means to or not. This leaves health organizations and public health experts trying to undo some of the damage he has done. 

Some of the most harmful lies he had spread is the idea that there is high availability to COVID-19 tests. This was blatantly inaccurate, with most doctors having to diagnose people without even seeing them based on their symptoms due to the fact there are so few tests.  Then there is Trump overall minimizing of the number of fatalities caused by the virus. He even went as far as saying, “We have very low numbers compared to major countries throughout the world. Our numbers are lower than just about anybody.” This is simply incorrect because the United States has been leading the world  with both cases and fatalities for a few weeks now. President Trump’s arrogance inhibited him from reacting to this virus even though he knew about it back in February, and now American people have to pay the price.