Trump Addresses Coronavirus in US
Evan Vucci/AP
We ran the numbers: There are 1026 news articles covering this topic. 49% (500) are left leaning, 34% (353) center, 17% (173) right leaning.
On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a congressional committee that federal health officials have discovered a new case of the coronavirus in the U.S. While left-leaning articles highlight the Trump administration’s slow response to the virus, right-leaning articles highlight that the media has made the virus seem more dangerous than it is.
A left-leaning article by The New York Times highlights that President Trump named Vice President Mike Pence to coordinate the government’s response to the coronavirus, which comes after mounting bipartisan criticism that the administration’s response had been sluggish as the virus has infected more than 81,000 people globally. Earlier in the day, the president had accused journalists of making the situation “look as bad as possible,” stating that the administration is testing everybody and finding “very little problem.”
The Hill published a centrist article reporting that there are now about 60 total cases of coronavirus in the country, which includes the 42 people brought back to the U.S. that were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. However, Azar sought to downplay the risk of the virus to Americans, even though other health officials have stressed that the virus is likely to become a pandemic.
A right-leaning article by Fox News reports that the president called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, “incompetent” after she challenged his response to the virus and said he couldn’t be trusted on the matter. Even while Trump reassured Americans that “great quarantine facilities” have been set up, Trump noted that the scale of the virus has been somewhat misrepresented, stating that the flu kills from 25,000 to 69,000 people per year by contrast to the 2,700 people globally who have been killed by coronavirus.
From the right
Trump says coronavirus vaccine coming along 'rapidly,' appoints Pence to head task force
Fox News