On Wednesday, President Donald Trump addressed the country from the Oval office about the looming threats of the coronavirus outbreak. Amidst the lockdown, Trump asks Americans to put both politics and partisanship aside and to unite “as a family.”

In the face of accusations about Trump’s competency to handle and respond to the outbreak from both left-winged politicians and supporters, the president calmly assured that the administration is doing its best to contain the virus. Trump said that “This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.”

The president even cited the measures that the present administration had taken to contain the virus, including; implementing a travel ban to China, launching a federally mandated quarantine, as well as travel bans from foreign countries.

In his official statement, the president also announced that he had set a 30-day suspension on traveling to Europe. Trump also went on to say that he partnered with the health insurance industry to make all coronavirus treatments free and accessible. He added that the government would cut regulations to make antiviral treatments readily available.

What’s more, is that the administration also signed a new policy that would provide a whopping $8.3 billion to help fight against the virus.

In the face of an impending economic collapse that was triggered by the virus, Trump had also enacted emergency economic intervention by providing a $50 billion aid to affected businesses as well as payroll and tax relief. With this, the president promises to ensure that both the health and economic aspects of the American public will remain stable in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Each of us has a role to play in defeating this virus,” Trump said. He reminded the public to follow health and safety precautions, such as frequent hand washing, disinfecting often used surfaces, covering face and mouth when sneezing, and, most importantly, staying at home whenever one is experiencing signs and symptoms of the virus.

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Just last Wednesday, head of the U.N agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared coronavirus as a “global pandemic.” In a briefing in Geneva, the U.N chief claimed that the World Health Organization (WHO) had become increasingly concerned by “the alarming levels of spread and severity” of the virus.

WHO classifies pandemic as the spread of a new disease on a global scale. Moreover, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a pandemic is usually a disease that affects a huge number of people and spreads across countries.

According to reports from John Hopkins University, the virus had currently infected more than 124,000 people in 114 different countries, while 68,000 had managed to recover. The virus spread so fast that in just a matter of weeks, the number of cases outside China had increased by up to thirteen times. Ninety percent of these cases were in China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran.

Ghebreyesus claimed that countries can still fight against the virus if it will “detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize” its citizens.