President Donald Trump this past February claimed that the novel coronavirus could soon "disappear" or "go away."
Eight months, 8.2 million infections and 220,000 deaths later, however, the coronavirus pandemic is still going strong with no end in sight.
CNN's fact-checking team of Daniel Dale and Daniel Wolfe have put together a damning timeline that shows Trump has claimed the virus would disappear or go away a total of 38 times over the past eight months, even during times when cases and deaths were surging.
"It’s going to disappear," Trump said on February 27th, before the pandemic had really taken hold in the United States. "One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear."
"We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it," Trump said on March 10th, when the U.S. was averaging 148 cases a day. "And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."
"Stay calm," Trump said on March 29th, when the U.S. was averaging over 15,000 new daily cases. "It will go away. You know it -- you know it is going away, and it will go away. And we’re going to have a great victory."
"It is going to go away," Trump said on April 4th, when the U.S. averaged nearly 27,000 daily cases. "It is going away."
Even as the pandemic's death toll passed the 100,000 mark in late May, the president continued making rosy predictions about it ending.
"I will be right eventually," Trump said on July 19th, when there were an average of over 66,000 new daily cases. "You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again. It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right."
"And we’re getting them [manufacturing jobs] even in a pandemic — which is disappearing; it’s going to disappear," Trump said on August 7th, when the U.S. was still averaging around 54,000 daily cases.
"But it’s going to disappear," Trump said on October 11th. "It is disappearing."
Over the last week, the United States has averaged more than 64,000 new coronavirus cases a day.
