Coronavirus: All the times Trump has baselessly claimed Covid-19 would disappear

US president has wrongly predicted Covid-19 would vanish at least 20 times since pandemic began

Donald Trump has maintained that Covid-19 – or “the plague” – could disappear within days, sometimes within one month, and now “at some point”.

The US president, on more than 20 occasions since February, said coronavirus would soon vanish and the United States could soon “claim victory”.

Instead, the US has seen the world’s worst death toll with some 130,000 American lives lost and 2.74 million infected.

Still, Mr Trump – whose presidential re-election bid hinges on an economic revival that could see even more Covid-19 fatalities, told Fox Business on Wednesday that the country was “going to very good with the coronavirus”.

He added: “I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of disappear, I hope”.

February: “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear”

As the pandemic began to spread in places such as New York, Seattle, and San Diego – where an early-February death could have been Covid-19 related – president Trump continued to praise China, who he said was “getting it more and more under control”.

On Chinese president Xi Jinping, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter on 7 February that “He is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus.”

“He will be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.”

China was praised again on 25 February, when Mr Trump said “[China is] getting it more and more under control. So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”

Whilst the virus continued to spread in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic started, president Trump’s other theory – based on warm weather destroying the coronavirus – has also proven to be not true.

When he met with state governors on 10 February, president Trump had told them “a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.”

Instead, the last week in April saw some 14,000 Americans deaths with Covid-19 since the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started to track cases.

In contrast to comments this month – which said the virus would disappear “at some point” – president Trump claimed on February 26 that the virus could vanish “within a couple of days”.

That has also proven not to be true.

“We have done an incredible job. We’re going to continue. It’s going to disappear,” said Mr Trump again on 27 February. “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

March: “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month”

As US coronavirus cases neared 300 on 6 March, with 14 reported deaths, president Trump said again that the virus will “go away.”

That same statement was heard again and again throughout the month, which ended with some 188,172 cases and 3,873 deaths across the US.

“We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away,” said Mr Trump on 10 March.

He added two days later: “t’s going away. We want it to go away with very, very few deaths.”

“It will go away. You know it — you know it is going away, and it will go away,” said the president on 30 March. “And we’re going to have a great victory. … I want to have our country be calm and strong, and fight and win, and it will go away.”

Then on 31 March, after states across the US sheltered-in-place, Mr Trump claimed that “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month. And, if not, hopefully it will be soon after that.”

April: “It might take longer [to go away]”

As cases neared 300,000 on 3 April, with more than 7,000 deaths, president Trump again said “It is going to go away. It is going away.…I said it’s going away, and it is going away.”

Four days later, as cases accelerated towards the 400,00 mark, with almost 13,000 deaths, he complained that “It will go away”, but that “the cases really didn’t build up for a while.”

“You have to understand, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else,” said Mr Trump, who argued two days later that: “I think what happens is it’s going to go away. This is going to go away”.

Then on 29 April, as Covid-19 continued to spread, he appeared to admit that “It’s gonna go. It’s gonna leave. It’s gonna be gone. It’s going to be eradicated and – uh – it might take longer. It might be in smaller sections. It won’t be what we had”

May: “It’ll go away at some point”

After US coronavirus cases surpassed the one million mark in April – rather than “going away” – the US president began to compare Covid-19 to other viruses that he claimed “never show up again”.

“They’ve never shown up again. They die, too. Like everything else, they die,” he said on 8 May. “It’s going to go away. And we’re not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.”

He added: “You might have some flare-ups and you know I guess I would expect that.”

Around one week later, he commented that “It’ll go away at some point, It’ll go away. It may flare up and it may not flare up. We’ll have to see what happens, but if it does flare up we’re going to put out the fire.”

June: “We did so well before the plague”

In the month when US states started to lift lockdown measures and ease some social distancing, Mr Trump claimed in 16 June that: “I always say, even without it [a vaccine], it goes away.”

He added: “But if we had the vaccine – and we will – if we had therapeutic or cure, one thing sort of blends into the other – it will be a fantastic day, and I think that’s gonna happen and it’s gonna happen very soon”.

Then, in an appearance on Fox News on 17 June, he commented that he did not want to talk about “really good therapeutics” because coronavirus was going to “fade away”.

Less than a week later, he complained to an audience in Phoenix, Arizona, that “We did so well before the plague and we’re doing so well after the plague. It’s going away.”

On Tuesday, and in contrast to those comments in June, the US reported more than 48,000 new coronavirus cases in one day – the highest 24-hour count since the pandemic started.

Eight states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas – all reported all-time highs for new daily cases.

Diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci warned on the same day that Covid-19 was not vanishing anytime soon.

Instead, the US could soon witness 100,000 new cases a day.

“I can’t make an accurate prediction but it’s going to be very disturbing,” said Dr. Fauci.