Americans will soon pass judgement on Trump's Covid approach

THE United States last Friday hit a record high of more than 83,000 new Covid-19 infections in a single day, as the pandemic spread across the country including regions that had not yet been hit hard.

Public health officials predict a further surge of Covid-19 in the US as the cold winter weather sets in, and are warning of dire shortages of medical staff and supplies. Yet, President Donald Trump - who has described himself as a "wartime president" leading the battle against the deadly virus - said the country was "turning the corner" on the novel coronavirus. He claimed in last week's presidential debate that the US was "learning to live" with the virus that has already killed more than 230,000 Americans.

There is no other way to put it. Mr Trump has been cavalier, dismissive, and outright dishonest about the coronavirus since its outbreak early in the year. In February he predicted that Covid-19 would be gone by April "in the warmer weather", and said the outbreak would be temporary, that it was "going to disappear . . . like a miracle". It turned out that - as the president admitted during recorded interviews with journalist Bob Woodward - he had known that Covid-19 was deadlier than the flu before it ravaged the country but decided to play down the crisis to avoid "public panic".