Trump Ignored NSC's corona warning

Washington: President Trump ignored advice by the National Security Council (NSC) back in January to consider shutting down cities and keep Americans home from work, memos reveals.

The NSC office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the devastation coronavirus could cause to the US once it hit, according to The New York Times.

Within weeks of receiving the report, NSC officials raised options Trump that would prevent the spread of the virus, including shutting down entire cities the size of Chicago. But Donald Trump ignored the warnings, and instead waited until March to implement such measures, the report reveals.

This comes as the death rate from coronavirus in the United States rises to 20,087 fatalities - overtaking Italy's death toll after 2,000 Americans died in one day - as the president celebrates Easter while social distancing in Washington, DC.

This is just one of a dozen reports that reveal the US had ample warning ahead of the devastation the coronavirus could cause, but ignored intelligence reports.

President Trump tweeted his outrage at the New York Times' findings on Saturday afternoon, 'When the Failing @nytimes or Amazon @washingtonpost writes a story saying "unnamed sources said", or any such phrase where a person's name is not used, don't believe them.

Most of these unnamed sources don't exist. They are made up to defame & disparage. They have no "source", the president wrote. 'Does anyone ever notice how few quotes from an actual person are given nowadays by the Lamestream Media. Very seldom.

The unnamed or anonymous sources are almost always FAKE NEWS,' he continued. Just this week it was revealed Donald Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro issued his first grim warning in a memo dated January 29 - just days after the first COVID-19 cases were reported in the US.

At the time, Trump was publicly downplaying the risk that the novel coronavirus posed to Americans - though weeks later he would assert that no one could have predicted the devastation seen today. Navarro penned a second memo about a month later on February 23, in which he warned that as many as two million Americans could die from the virus as it tightened its grip on the nation.

The January memo marks the earliest known high-alert to circulate within the West Wing as officials planned their first substantive steps to confront the disease that had already spiraled out of control in China. It serves as evidence that top officials in the administration had considered the possibility of the outbreak turning into something far more serious than Trump was acknowledging publicly at the time.

Another report shows that Trump dismissed Health Secretary Alex Azar's initial warnings about the deadly coronavirus as 'alarmist' back in January.

Trump's administration continues to be heavily criticized for its delayed reaction to COVID-19 by failing to mobilise upon early warnings, form a chain of command, and organise efficient nation-wide testing - as the US suffers heavy casualties from the virus with over 9,600 deaths.

But the president had time to respond as he was first notified about the coronavirus outbreak in China on January 3. Azar called Trump on January 18 while the president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to brief him about the severity of the novel coronavirus.

During that call the president reportedly cut him off before Azar could explain and instead criticised the health secretary over his handling of the axed federal vaping ban. At that time the president was reportedly more concerned about his then-ongoing impeachment trial.