The American government has been covering up or lying about the facts about coronavirus since at least last February. It has been misleading the public about the severity of the virus, how it spreads, and the extent of its spread, it is alleged.

Watergate journalist Bob Woodward's new book "Rage" and the tapes of the interviews that accompanied it show that President Donald Trump knew as early as February 7 that COVID-19 was extremely deadly and that it was transmitted through the air.

Yet, he made a conscious decision to "play it down." In public, he called the virus a "hoax" and said it wasn't as dangerous as the flu; and, in private, he described it as "more deadly than your strenuous flus … deadly stuff."

The need to promote economic growth and ensure resumption of work is important; however, covering up the severity of the outbreak and putting millions of lives at risk for the sake of politics is short-sighted.

Regardless of whether or not the president acknowledged the danger of the pandemic, it was going to continue spreading and killing even more Americans than it would have done if he had taken action. The American public would eventually have realized it was a problem when their friends and family members kept getting sick and hospitals filled up.

If Trump had raised the alarm and put policies in place to prepare for the virus spread, he could have minimized suffering and thus minimized panic. It's the 200,000 deaths and the lack of a plan to stop them that has caused fear.

As it turned out, it wasn't until professional basketball players started getting infected that Trump was forced to act. Only after the NBA suspended its season on March 11, did Trump declare a National Emergency. All along, he has been responding to events, not leading.

It would be bad enough if Trump were actually trying to stop coronavirus and just doing a terrible job of it. But he's not; he's actively lying about coronavirus and trying to impede America's response.

It would be bad enough if the coverup were limited to the President of the United States. But it's not; the American government's own disease agency, the CDC, and the Surgeon General, have been bending a collective knee to Trump's will, thus contributing to the cover up. 

In late February, long after Trump knew that coronavirus was spread through the air and that it spread through asymptomatic transmission, Trump's Surgeon General lectured Americans to "STOP BUYING MASKS!"

Giving such anti-scientific guidance that ran against public health imperatives at a time of pandemic, the Trump administration knowingly put the American public at risk of catching coronavirus. To this day, Trump continues to hold mass rallies indoors where his supporters don't wear masks. 

Even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), once a highly respected agency in the country and the world, has been made to take part in Trump's malicious coverup. The CDC has posted Trump's preferred messaging on its website intended to downplay the severity of coronavirus, again putting American lives at risk.

This summer, for example, Trump told Americans not to get tested for coronavirus. He argued that, "If we don't get tested, we'd have very few cases." In essence, you don't know what you don't test for! People would still catch coronavirus, but they just wouldn't know it.

So, the CDC actually posted a message in August telling people without symptoms not to get tested. The message was so wrong that governors of certain states decided to ignore it. The CDC destroyed its own credibility by choosing to follow Trump rather than scientific advice.

In September, the CDC admitted the message telling people not to get tested was wrong and it was reported that the message was not written or approved by CDC scientists. 

Later in September, the CDC briefly updated its website to indicate the possibility for the virus to spread through aerosols at restaurants or choir practices, as Trump alluded to in private in February. However, in another suspicious move, the CDC quickly removed that information after one day.

When the United States accused foreign countries of being involved in a "coverup," the charge was always suspect on its face. Now we see the President of the United States himself was guilty as sin of that very thing. 

Mitchell Blatt is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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