Coronavirus: People dying because of Trump’s failure in public health, says Chelsea Clinton

President says deaths in US could hit 100,000 – 240,000

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has claimed people are dying amid the coronavirus crisis because of Donald Trump’s “failure in public health, leadership and humanity”.

As the president warned Americans to brace themselves for a “rough two-week period” as new projections suggested between 100,000-240,000 people could die from the disease even with social distancing measures in place, Ms Clinton attacked the president on Twitter.

Retweeting a post that showed the president in front of chart that showed possible fatalities, she wrote: “Multiple failures-to test every suspected case, to isolate confirmed cases, to contact trace, to adequately prepare & protect our health workers.”

She added: “President @realDonaldTrump didn’t cause #covid19 but people are dying because of his failure in public health, leadership & humanity.”

The president has received widespread criticism for being very slow to take seriously the potential impact of the virus.

For weeks, he said the virus would be no worse than the flu and claimed – based on a “hunch” – its mortality rate would be less than experts said it would be.

On Tuesday, the number of infections in the US passed 180,000 and the number of deaths hit 3,800.

Ms Clinton, whose mother, Hillary Clinton, was Mr Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016, recently co-wrote an op-ed for CNN headlined: “Under Trump, America is less prepared for a coronavirus outbreak.”

In the article Ms Clinton, who teaches at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia, said the nation’s ability to tackle a pandemic has been weakened by cuts Mr Trump had made to the public health infrastructure.