COVID-19: Donald Trump and his virus expert give contrasting statements about American response

US President Donald Trump and his lead expert gave contrasting statements about the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

Trump tried to downplay the threat of the novel coronavirus andsaid that ''relax, we’re doing great. It all will pass,'' when asked about the current scenario of the virus in the country.

But his remarks stood in stark contrast to his virus expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, who said in the same conference that ''the worst is ahead of us and we are at a very, very critical point now''.

Donald Trump requested Americans to refrain from panic buying basic supplies as the administration announced plans to expand testing for the virus and health officials were preparing to release ''advanced guidelines'' on how to mitigate its spread.

The leading US government agency for public health, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), announced a national recommendation shortly after, urging all gatherings of 50 people or over, including festivals, parades, weddings, and sporting events, to be cancelled for the next eight weeks. The recommendation did not include schools or business enterprises.

However, twenty-four states have already announced the closure of many schools.

There are2,900 confirmed cases across 49 states in America according tothe US Vice-President,Mike Pence.

The deadlycoronavirus which has reported 169,924 positive cases and 6,521 deaths in Chinaso far was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Earlier, Chinese city Wuhan which is located in the Hubei province of China was the epicentre of the virus.

But WHO declared Europe as its the current epicentre on Saturday.