As health experts sound the alarm, Trump fights coronavirus with alternative facts

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s governing strategy is on a collision course with a novel foe. Can alternative facts stop a pandemic?

Some of the nation’s leading public-health experts assembled before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning with some worrisome warnings: The dangerous Wuhan novel coronavirus is probably already in the United States in greater numbers than we know and should show itself in clusters in the coming weeks. There’s reason to doubt its spread will die down when the weather warms. And it could ultimately affect hundreds of thousands of Americans.

But Trump has never been one to embrace expert opinion, whether on climate change or on windmill cancer.