Protesters hold ‘Trump lies, people die’ signs and dump fake body bags outside White House in coronavirus protest

Demonstration part of mock funerals for those who have died from Covid-19

Demonstrators dumped fake body bags outside the White House and held up signs that read “Trump Lies, People Die,” in protest at president Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The demonstration coincided with a separate protest outside the White House on Wednesday that called for the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the use of therapeutic drugs to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Demonstrators protesting the coronavirus response laid down fake black body bags, while the ALS protesters laid inside white ones across the street.

Some of the coronavirus protesters held up signs which read “Trump Lies, People Die,” according to Newsweek, for what was called a National Day of Mourning for those who have lost their lives to Covid-19.

One of the co-organisers of the demonstration, CPD Action, tweeted that the protests were part of a mock funeral that put the blame for coronavirus deaths at the door of the Trump administration.

“Activists across the country are holding a mass #NationalFuneral to hold the Trump administration and Republican elected officials accountable for their failure to protect people from Covid-19,” the tweet read.

The Trump administration has been widely criticised for its response to the coronavirus crisis, and many believe the government has been too slow to react to the pandemic.

The US now has the highest coronavirus-related death total in the world, and earlier this month Forbes reported that since the start of the outbreak in the US, Mr Trump has lied 23 times per day.

The president has also faced criticism for backtracking on claims he has made during the crisis, and last month falsely told US citizens that injecting bleach could help treat the virus.

This week, six sources from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told CNN that the Trump administration has followed ideology over science in its response.

A current CDC official told CNN that the organisation planned to put out a global advisory that warned about the dangers of flying abroad, a week before the Trump administration formally recognised it.

If the advisory had been published when the organisation planned, US lives would have been saved, the official added.

“We’ve been muzzled,” the officials said. “What’s tough is that if we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money.”

In the time between their proposal and the publishing of the advisory, more than 66,000 Europeans arrived at US airports.

At the ALS demonstration protesters climbed into white body bags.

Twitter user @LuchaEla posted a picture of the body bag protest and asked for the FDA to approve drugs to treat ALS.

“Do for #ALS what you did for #COVID. #ALS is 100 percent fatal! Help ALS patients access promising treatments NOW! We do not have time to wait!” she tweeted.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 1.5 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 94,994.