Denial, dismissal, finger-pointing, bleach: How Trump took on coronavirus

In the 17th instalment of our series recapping an unprecedented presidency, Joe Sommerlad finds the president treated to a lavish welcome in India before returning home to face a global pandemic

Trump with Fauci in April (Reuters)

War in Iran having failed to materialise and, freshly acquitted by the Senate, Donald Trump was in upbeat form in February 2020.

The only blot on his horizon was the emergence of a deadly new respiratory disease in the city of Wuhan, China, but the president had rejected the significance of Covid-19 out of hand, telling the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a day after the first American case had been recorded on 21 January: “We have this totally under control.”

After the World Health Organisation declared a global emergency on 30 January, Trump moved to shut down air travel from China as a precaution and assumed that would be sufficient to block its arrival on American shores.