US President Donald Trump has rejected criticism of his response to the coronavirus threat, lashing out on Twitter at what he called the "fake news" Democrats and media.
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He tweeted: "If the Fake News Opposition Party is pushing, with all their might, the fact that President Trump 'ignored early warnings about the threat,' then why did Media & Dems viciously criticize me when I instituted a Travel Ban on China? They said 'early & not necessary.' Corrupt Media!"
US media reports have increasingly highlighted growing concerns about how the White House handled the initial signs that a pandemic was coming, at times downplaying the risk to the US and failing to ensure medical stockpiles were sufficient.
In depth reporting in both the Washington Post and New York Times newspapers indicates that senior advisors to the president had warned of a coronavirus pandemic in late January that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Trump initially downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus, publicly maintaining until early March that the virus was no cause for concern for the United States.
In those initial months Trump also praised China's efforts at containing the virus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
But last week Trump levelled criticism at the World Health Organization (WHO) and threatened to reduce its funding. "The W.H.O. really blew it," Trump said in a tweet, noting that the US was a major funder of the organisation.
The Trump administration also slashed the budget of the US agency charged with hunting down viral diseases like COVID-19 that spill over from animals to the human world.
But last year it found itself without a permanent leader, and squarely in the Trump administration's budget-slashing sights.
That all changed with the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 20,000 Americans and more than 100,000 people across the world.
Now, the Global Health Bureau, part of the US Agency for International Development, has abundant government support. Congress and Trump have agreed to multiply the budget for the bureau's activities that can support "global health security" and related efforts as much as fivefold, to more than half a billion dollars.
And its top leadership position - left empty for three years by the White House and a plodding Senate confirmation process - finally was filled in late March.
Australian Associated Press
