My TDS makes me think Trump says whatever he thinks will make him look good (or his opponents look bad) with very little regard for the truth. Even at White House Press briefings during a national crisis.
Jan 22: "we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Feb 19: “in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And that’s a beautiful date to look forward to.” "We’re going very substantially down, not up."
Feb 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”
Mar 7: “It’s got the world aflutter, but it’ll work out,”
Mar 11: WHO officially declares pandemic.
Mar 17: “I’ve always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic. I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. ... No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
Trump cutoff travel from China in January, and this is probably what he is referring to when he says he was taking it seriously.
On Jan 20 and Jan 22, the WHO
said there was human to human transmission of the Wuhan virus, however, before that, they were saying this was not the case. I am not sure of the timing of Trump's Jan 22 statement and the WHO statements on the same date. China did not let the US CDC inside Wuhan to get a better understanding of the virus, and as a result, the rest of the world, including Trump had a difficult time gauging the seriousness of the Wuhan virus.
The Wuhan virus is not going to be here forever. I can assure you that if Trump loses the election, it will be declared safe to open up the economy the day after the election. Unless the virus mutates enough, once you recover from the Wuhan virus, you are immune from the virus, as is the case for all viruses. (if you get the flu multiple times, this is because you have caught multiple strands of the flu).
Trump, like all other politicians, will try to shine everything in a positive light for themselves.
I would point out the US's worst mayor
encouraged people to visit New York theaters on a March 5 show, and 11 days after the show he encouraged New Yorkers to watch, he described the coronavirus situation as
"war-like". Some of the people who got infected from going to the March 5 show had probably not yet started showing symptoms. There are other examples of prominent democrats encouraging people to go out in public in crowded areas around the same time.