COVID-19 didn't have to be this bad.

He Knew That COVID Was Deadly and Lied Continuously About It

• Early January: Trump is first alerted to the virus growing in China via his Daily Briefing and is soon told that it could turn into a pandemic that infects the entire world.
  

• January 29th: Trade advisor Peter Navarro writes a memo suggesting that COVID-19 could kill up to 500,000 Americans.
  

• February 7th: Trump admits to Bob Woodward is COVID-19 was remarkably deadly — "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," he says.
  

• February 9th: Trump says “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.”
  

• February 26th: Instead of telling Americans the truth, Trump said that COVID was "like a flu" and that cases would be "close to zero" within a few days during a White House coronavirus task force briefing.
  

• February 29th: Trump again promises that "like a miracle, it’ll just disappear."
  

• March 4th: During a phone interview with Sean Hannity, Trump cast doubt on the official infection rate.
  

• March 19th: Trump tells Bob Woodward, "To be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic."
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He Got COVID-19 — and Exposed More People to It

• September 30th: Trump arrives too late in Cleveland for a COVID-19 test. The debate organizers decide to use the "honor system."

• Aides notice that Trump begins to feel sluggish and ill.
  

• October 1st: Trump's long-time aide, Hope Hicks, announces that she's tested positive for COVID-19. She flew with Trump on Tuesday and Wednesday.

• Aides notice that Trump begins to feel sluggish and ill.

• Instead of immediately isolating himself, Trump holds fundraisers indoors, in close contact with many people. The then flies to Minnesota and holds a rally for thousands of people.

• October 2nd: News breaks that Trump has tested positive for COVID-19. He finally admits to having COVID-19 after the news breaks.

• More Republicans begin to come down with the illness, including Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis. It becomes clear that the maskless, close-quarters event celebrating the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Sep. 27th was a super-spreader event.

• Trump is taken to Walter Reed medical center, where he undergoes what seems to be a heavy regimen of medications and steroids for the next few days. Doctors lie about his condition.

• October 4th: Bored and restless, Trump demands to take a short SUV tour to say hello to supporters, putting his Secret Service agents in direct danger of contracting his COVID-19.

• October 5th: Trump leaves Walter Reed early, heading back to the White House on a trip that exposes more agents and employees to COVID-19. White House staff, largely consisting of Black and Latin workers, is kept in the dark.
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• October 6th: Speaking from the White House, Trump eschews advice that he should use his illness as an opportunity urge people to be safe and instead promises that an unproven "cure" will soon be available and free for all Americans. It never happens.
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‍He’s Encouraged and Facilitated Millions of People Being Exposed to the Virus

• March 7th: Trump tries to keep American passengers on the COVID-stricken Grand Princess cruise ship from docking despite dire conditions. "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault," he says.
  

• March 11th: The Grand Princess is allowed to dock but passengers with COVID are forced to ride in helicopters with those who were not infected. One authority on infectious diseases calls it "one of the cruelest human experiments I’ve seen in my entire career."
  

• April 17th: As COVID continues to devastate, Trump signals support for armed, maskless militias congregating in state capitols to protest safety regulations. "They seem to be very responsible people to me," Trump says. "They’ve been treated, a little bit rough."
  

• Trump, trying to force states to open prematurely, also encourages armed, maskless protestors across the country with tweets like "LIBERATE MICHIGAN."
  

• Late April/Early May: Trump encourages states to re-open, in many cases pushing them to move faster than his own White House’s guidelines. COVID cases in these states, including Florida and Texas, skyrocket all summer.
  

• June 20th: Trump holds a large indoor, mask-free rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma despite warnings that it would put people at risk.
  

• June 23rd: Trump holds another large indoor, maskless rally, this one in Arizona.
  

• Early July: Weeks after the Oklahoma rally, the Tulsa area experiences a huge spike in COVID cases directly tied to the event. Hermain Cain, who attended, dies a few months later.
  

• The same goes for Arizona, where a corresponding spike happened in the same time frame.
  

• July 24th: Going against CDC recommendations, Trump threatens to cut federal support for school districts that do not open up for in-person education at the beginning of the new school year. He forces the CDC to withdraw its recommendations and issue new ones.
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• August: Trump's White House hires his favorite Fox News medical pundit, Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford's Hoover Institute. Atlas spends 130 days advocating for fewer precautions, stopping the White House from dispersing billions of dollars in testing funds, and then resigns at the end of October when his tenure is ending.

• October 1st: Trump announces that he will be going forward with a rally in Wisconsin, against the advice of his own White House's coronavirus task force.
  
  

The Face Mask Saga

• April 4th: As the CDC recommends that people wear face masks, Trump says "I won’t be wearing one personally."
  

• He continues to refuse to wear a mask for months, politicizing what is seen as the most effective way of stopping the disease’s transmission. Trump publicly states, over and over again, that he won’t wear a mask.
  

• May 5th: Trump visits a Honeywell plant in Arizona. He wears safety goggles but no mask.
  

• May 25th: Trump retweets a Fox News anchor that mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask to a Memorial Day event.
  

• May 26th: When asked by journalists, Trump says Biden wearing a mask was "unusual."
  

• Late August: After wearing masks sporadically, Trump stops wearing them again. He appears at Republican National Convention events without a mask and makes campaign stops maskless, as well.
  

• Early September: Trump’s campaign begins conducting near-daily events, with no masks involved.
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‍He Continues to Lie About Drugs and Treatments

• March 19th: Trump first brings up hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, as a potential treatment for COVID-19. "The nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if if things don't go as planned, it's not going to kill anybody," he says.
  

• March 20th: Dr. Anthony Fauci, when asked whether he thought hydroxychloroquine would be useful against COVID, minced no words: "The answer is no," he says.
  

• Trump then pushed back at the same press conference, saying, "I’m a big fan… I feel good about it. That's all it is, just a feeling, you know."
  

• March 21st: Trump tweets about a French study that shows hydroxychloroquine could help with COVID… the study is said to be flawed and presented to be more successful than it was.
  

• March 28th: Under pressure from Trump, the FDA approves hydroxychloroquine for emergency treatment of COVID-19.
  

• April 13th: Hydroxychloroquine is linked to fatal heart issues amongst patients in Brazil. Several days earlier, the American Heart Association issued warnings about the dangers it presents.
  

• April 22nd: Trump forces out the FDA vaccine chief. The ousted official, Rick Bright, says his pushing back on the hydroxychloroquine was one of the reasons he was fired.
  

• April 24th: FDA issues a warning about hydroxychloroquine, saying that it "has not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19."
  

• May 18th: Undaunted, Trump says he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine. Sales skyrocket across the country, despite all the other warnings.
  

• June 15th: The FDA revokes the emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine, as it continues to be linked to cardiac issues and death.
  

• All summer: Trump continues to promote hydroxychloroquine, defying the agencies and doctors that say it is not safe for consumption unless prescribed for its actual purpose.
  

• September 8th: He continues to push the fiction that a vaccine will be ready by election day, despite pharmaceutical executives saying that will not be the case.

• His obstruction slowed Congress’s response to the blossoming COVID-19 crisis.
  

• He refused to wear a mask even after being diagnosed with the virus.
  

• After recovering, Paul said that he was immune to the virus, which medical officials and the WHO disputed.
  

• He publicly fought with medical officials for months, spreading lies about the virus while doing so.
  

• Paul earned the rare public upbraiding from Dr. Anthony Fauci for continuing to spread misinformation about herd immunity.

• Lee was one of the few senators to vote against COVID-19 relief in mid-March as the pandemic took hold.
  

• Lee refused to wear a mask, even after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
  

• He has waged war against the World Health Organization at a critical time.
  

• He fought to cut off relief to states that maintained shelter-in-place orders.
  

• Lee asked Trump to strip states of emergency funding if they did not allow churches to open during the pandemic.

• Lee even mocked children for taking precautions against the virus.
  

• In September, Lee attended the Amy Coney Barrett nomination celebration. It was a super-spreader event and he did not wear a mask.

• A week later, Lee announced that he has been diagnosed with COVID-19.

• Democratic Congressman Salud Carbajal said that he caught COVID-19 after interacting with Lee.

• Ten days after that, when he should be self-isolating, Lee attended the hearing for Amy Coney Barrett — without wearing a mask.

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• March 25th: Experts say that Florida had just one week before hospitals would be overwhelmed. DeSantis defies public health officials and refuses to close down the state.
  

• March 31st: DeSantis still refuses to issue a stay at home order. He has a journalist removed from a press conference for asking to social distance.
  

• April 1st: DeSantis finally issues a stay-at-home order — after 33 other states have done so. It was a full month after Florida had its first two diagnosed cases of COVID-19.
  

• May 15th: DeSantis reopens the state, despite reporting 11,000 new cases per day and showing no signs of decline.
  

• July 6th: DeSantis’s education commissioner issues an order that requires all schools in Florida to open up for in-person instruction.

• July 12th: Florida sets the national record with over 15,000 new cases in a single day.
  

• August 7th: DeSantis and his education commissioner threatened to withhold funding from schools that did not open up to in-person classes five days a week.

• August 24th: A judge rules that they could not extort school districts if teachers and health officials did not believe it was safe to resume in-person classes.
  

• September 10th: DeSantis allowed bars and restaurants to reopen for indoor service. Cities such as Tallahassee and Panama City continue to record increases in COVID-19 cases.
  

• September 25th: DeSantis reopens the entire state. He goes so far as to ban any cities from creating more than a 50% capacity restriction on restaurants, bars, and other locations where the disease is known to spread.
  

• Throughout the entire crisis, DeSantis has never issued a mandatory mask order, even as the state’s cases surged.

• March 2nd: Kemp is first warned by public health officials in Georgia that COVID-19 could spread throughout communities. He also announces there are only two cases in the state at this time. Later, it’s revealed that there were 167 cases of coronavirus already in Georgia.
  

• March 12th: In a press conference, Kemp says he believes “local control is best.” The first Georgian dies of COVID-19.
  

• March 24th: Kemp finally issues orders to close bars and asks the medically vulnerable and seniors to stay at home. He ignores calls to issue a shelter-in-place order for the state. The biggest paper in the state criticizes Kemp for not taking further action.
  

• April 2nd: The governor relents and announces a shelter-in-place order for the state. He also says that he just learned that COVID could spread through asymptomatic carriers, which earns him national mockery.
  

• Kemp’s order also bans local governments from taking any further action to stop the spread of the virus.
  

• April 20th: Kemp announces that many businesses could reopen within days, including hair salons, tattoo parlors, and other “high touch” services. He is soon found to be using manipulated data to justify reopenings.
  

• April 24th: As businesses begin to reopen, the state’s coronavirus numbers continue to climb by the day.
  

• May 18th: Kemp is caught using manipulated numbers to show a fake decline in COVID cases and is forced to apologize.
  

• June 20th: Two months after Kemp’s declaration, Georgia experiences a massive spike in COVID cases, part of a sustained increase that continues for months.
  

• July 17th: Kemp pushes schools to open in August, likening COVID to a "stomach flu."
  

• July 24th: Cases continue to spike exponentially, topping 160,000 in the state.
  

• August 11th: After Kemp encourages schools to reopen, COVID cases begin to spike amongst students and teachers.
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• August 15th: Kemp officially files a lawsuit against Atlanta and other cities, seeking to strike down their mask mandates.

• April 24th: On the same day that Iowa reports its highest COVID case and death count to that point, Reynolds announces that she was loosening shelter-at-home restrictions on businesses and citizens across the state.
  

• May 24th: As Iowa’s positive test rate and deaths per capita continue rising and passing other states, Reynolds orders that arcades, coffee shops, bars, casinos, and other indoor facilities may open up.
  

• July 21st: Reynolds is called out for the state’s decision to limit the number of COVID-19 tests in its cities. A Dubuque clinic reported that the state limited it to just 100 tests a day.
  

• Late July: Iowa public officials hide the fact that they are misreporting COVID cases. They are reporting more recent cases as having taken place months prior, which artificially lowers the infection rate and fools people into a false sense of security.
  

• August 28th: Reynolds’ popularity crashes, with just 28% of Iowans saying that they approved of her decisions during the pandemic.
  

• September 2nd: The White House task force on COVID-19, citing Iowa’s skyrocketing case rate, suggests that Reynolds close bars, implement a mask mandate, and limit gatherings. Reynolds decides not to comply with the suggestions.
  

• September 3rd: The former spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Health files a lawsuit claiming unlawful termination. She alleges that she was forced out for complying with public records requests for information about the COVID-19 pandemic. At this point, Iowa has the highest rate of new cases of COVID-19 tests in the country.
  

• The lawsuit alleges that she was “stripped of her duties and later terminated after she made repeated efforts to comply with Iowa’s Open Records law by producing documents to local and national media regarding the state of Iowa’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”
  

• September 29th: As COVID numbers continue to surge in Iowa, the White House coronavirus task force says that “Test positivity and case rates have been sustained at the highest levels during the past four weeks, putting Iowa in a vulnerable position going into the fall and winter.”
  

• The task force suggests a mask mandate — something that Reynolds continues to oppose.

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• April 1st: Noem refuses to issue a stay-at-home order, even after 30 other states had done so.
  

• April 13th: South Dakota becomes a COVID-19 hotspot thanks to outbreaks in meat plants with over 300 cases. As the mayor of Sioux City and even Republican officials call for a lockdown, Noem still declines to issue any directives.
  

• April 17th: Noem continues to refuse to take action, issue any shelter-at-home orders or mandate masks.

• “The people themselves are primarily responsible for their safety," Noem says. "They are the ones that are entrusted with expansive freedoms. They're free to exercise their rights to work, to worship, and to play. Or to even stay at home, or to conduct social distancing." ‍

• April 28th: Noem announces a plan called “Back to Normal” that would include a reopening of the Smithfield meat plant, a COVID hotspot.
  

• May 11th: With little intervention, cases begin to skyrocket, especially in meat plants. South Dakota surges past 3,000 cases.
  

• June 30th: As Noem promotes a July 4th celebration with fireworks at Mount Rushmore, to be attended by President Trump, she tells Laura Ingraham that the thousands of people due to attend “will not be social distancing.” She also says masks will be optional.
  

• July 29th: Noem announces that she will push to reopen schools in the fall — and disparages the idea that they might be asked to wear masks. In fact, she once again suggested that masks didn’t work at all, saying that there was “very mixed research and the science has not proven what's effective and what isn't."
  

• August 5th: With the massive Sturgis Motorcycle Rally just days away, Noem goes on Fox News to encourage people to attend the event. She says that governors who shut their states down are overstepping and violating the Constitution. In doing so, she ignores the wishes of county officials and residents who wanted the event, which generally draws 250,000 attendees, canceled.
  

• August 6th: With other states acting responsibly, Noem begins an advertising campaign to lure businesses to South Dakota. Her ads highlight the lack of COVID-19 health and safety regulations in the state.
  

• September 8th: A scientific study suggests that the Sturgis rally caused 260,000 cases of COVID and $12.2 billion in economic damage. Noem calls the report “fiction.”
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• September and October: Noem spends much of the month out of state as the pandemic begins to rage, campaigning for President Trump at his Florida resorts and in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Oregon, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan
  

• October 17th: South Dakota reports the second highest number of COVID cases per 100,000 residents at 978. ‍

• October 18th: As COVID rates continue to increase, with a massive 33% positive test rate, South Dakota marks its 100th coronavirus death of the month. Noem blames it on more testing.

• December 28th: A federal judge slams Noem for her conduct in a ruling that blocks the state's effort to delay criminal trials while allowing all other activity in the state.
  
  "The Governor has steadfastly refused to impose a statewide mask mandate. She has often questioned publicly the scientific fact that mask wearing prevents the virus from spreading. she appeared at a dedication ceremony for a large 3M Company in Aberdeen manufacturing plant expansion — to allow 3M to produce even more N95 respirators needed by front-line healthcare workers — as the only public official not wearing a mask. Her example significantly encourages South Dakotans to not wear masks. South Dakota is now a very dangerous place in which to live due to the spread of COVID-19. Even a casual observer must note the failure of most residents of South Dakota to wear masks and maintain social distancing."
  

• March 30th: After Gov. Evers issued a “safer-at-home” order that closed all non-essential businesses, Vos announcs his opposition to the order and encouraged conservative groups to file a lawsuit.
  

• April 8th: Along with the State Senate Majority Leader, Vos blocks all efforts to delay an in-person election during the middle of the safer-at-home order, putting people in danger. Vos then assures Wisconsinites that they were “incredibly safe to go out” while wearing head-to-toe PPE gear while working at a polling site, earning national mockery.
  

• April 17th: After Evers extends the order that had kept the state from reaching the projected COVID case count, Vos decides to file a lawsuit himself, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reverse the order. “We’re angry, we’re frustrated and we’re trying to push back in every way that we can,” he says.
  

• May 13th: The conservative-dominated State Supreme Court hands Vos a victory, blocking the extension of the “safer-at-home” order. It gives the State House control over the COVID response.
  

• June 10th: A recording of Vos blaming COVID-19 on “immigrant cultures” is leaked to the public, causing outrage and calls for his resignation.
  

• July 7th: Word leaks that Vos’s popcorn company received between $150,000 and $350,000 from the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans.
  

• September 22nd: Vos calls Evers’ statewide mask mandate amid a spike in COVID cases “illegal” and supports court challenges.

• September 30th: Wisconsin ends the month as the nation's coronavirus epicenter, with nearly 50,000 new cases.

• October 2nd: The Wisconsin legislature, led by Vos, asks a state court to overturn the mask mandate.

• October 5th: Over 145 days after winning in state court, Vos has still failed to introduce a new plan to deal with COVID.

• April 15th: Both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature pass a bill that would repeal Gov. Tom Wolf’s shelter-at-home order and allow counties to permit businesses to open while COVID numbers skyrocket in the state.
  

• April 20th: State Rep. Russ Diamond speaks at a large, mask-less rally, riling up conservatives and demanding an end to shelter-at-home orders.
  

• May 7th: Rep. Diamond goes shopping without a mask on — and brags about it on social media.
  

• May 28th: State Rep. Andrew Lewis reveals that he tested positive for COVID-19 — something he didn’t reveal to Democrats or Capitol employees for weeks, putting them in danger.
  

• June 9th: The legislature once again votes to end Gov. Wolf’s emergency disaster declaration. They spend the rest of the summer passing resolutions to do so, only to be rejected by the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court.
  

• October 1st: State Rep. Paul Schemel tests positive for COVID-19. He refused to wear a mask and exposed colleagues to the virus for weeks.
  

• April 24th: Sen. Tom Barrett sponsors a bill to strip Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of her emergency powers as governor, which go back to 1945.

• May 6th: Barrett announces his support for the Republican legislature's lawsuit against Gov. Whitmer's shutdown orders.

• May 20th: Barrett goes maskless and participates in "Operation Haircut," a right-wing protest at the Michigan capitol building.

• July 20th: As Gov. Whitmer urges people in Michigan to wear masks, Rep. LaFave made two very false pronouncements.
  

• The first: “The masks are not going to save anyone,” he said. “The masks aren’t going to save anybody. It doesn’t make much sense.”

• The second: “I’m less likely to die if I get COVID-19 than the flu. I can’t get this virus and I’ll be OK.”
  

• July 24th: While still arguing against people wearing masks and taking precautions, LaFave offered a useless proposal that would have required that the state send China an “itemized statement of the damages, costs, expenses and other losses” stemming from the pandemic.

• August 3rd: Barrett tests positive for COVID-19 — and says he still opposes masks and shelter-at-home orders.
  

• September 29th: LaFave tests positive for COVID-19 as the number of cases rise in his district. And yet, he still argues against increased safety measures.

• October 2nd: Barrett, recovered from COVID-19, says that he doesn't think school kids should wear masks.
  

• March 23rd: During an interview on Fox News, Patrick harshly criticizes states that issued shelter-in-place orders. The economy, he says, could not survive a shutdown, so sacrifices were necessary. Literally.

• “No one reached out to me and said, ‘as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick says. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”
  

• April 21st: After taking heat for his comments, Patrick doubles down on them in another interview with Tucker Carlson: “I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game and get this country back up and running,” he says.
  

• April 30th: Texas hits its highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths — one day before Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick reopen the state.
  

• June 26th: As numbers of cases and deaths continue to spike, Gov. Abbott decides to close bars and suspend elective surgeries. Patrick goes on TV and offers several lies: “Our hospitalizations are up, but here’s the good news, the good news is we’re not seeing it translate to the ICU unit or into fatalities.”

• ICU cases were, in fact, rising in Texas’s major cities. In San Antonio, it was up 420%, while hospitals in Houston said 100% of its ICU capacity was gone.
  

• July 1st: Patrick goes back on Fox News, this time to fire back at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s criticism of Texas’s handling of COVID-19. Patrick says Fauci had “been wrong every time on every issue” and wholly rejected his advice.

• “Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick says. “We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”‍

• July 30: Texas suffers yet another day of record-setting COVID deaths and reaches more than 400,000 cases overall — fourth in the United States.