The editor of a respected science magazine has strongly condemned the president, as it emerged he had intentionally played down the threat posed by the coronavirus. As the number of infections in the US passed 6.5m and the number of fatalities approached 200,000, excepts of a new book by Bob Woodward revealed the president privately was aware of the seriousness posed by the virus and the pandemic it had triggered. “This is deadly stuff,” the president told Mr Woodward in February, one of 18 he had with the veteran reporter and exposer of the Watergate scandal, for his new book, Rage.
