United States President Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that intelligence services confirmed that they only mentioned the outbreak of the coronavirus shortly before he banned flights from China, so he could not have acted any faster. He added that his early actions saved "thousands of lives."
"Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner," Trump tweeted. "Fake News got it wrong again, as always, and tens of thousands of lives were saved by my EARLY BAN of China into our Country. The people that we’re allowed were heavily scrutinized and tested U.S. citizens, and as such, I welcome them with open arms!," he added.
The US is currently the country with more coro9navirus cases and deaths than any other country with over 1.1 million infections and over 67,000 deaths. However, Trump has accused China of misreporting its number of cases and insisted it had many more COVID-19 fatalities that the US.