Trump defiant as White House is rebuked for coronavirus 'mess'

President Donald Trump defended the "perfectly coordinated" US response to the coronavirus epidemic Sunday amid heavy criticism over health cuts and strategic blunders that have failed to stem its rapid spread.

The virus has reached 30 US states, killing at least 19 people, while the American capital announced its first case Saturday and 60 million people in California and New York state were under emergency orders.

Trump, who has been accused of peddling misinformation on the outbreak, blamed the media in an early morning tweet for trying to make his government "look bad" as criticism mounted with nearly 500 cases recorded.

"We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus," Trump tweeted.

"We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. VP is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!" But Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, criticized Trump's messaging around the outbreak, telling NBC the president "hasn't communicated the way I would, and the way I might like him to."
He has downplayed the threat posed by the epidemic, which has killed more than 3,500 people since emerging in China, suggesting cases were "going very substantially down, not up," falsely pledging that a vaccine would soon be available and claiming without evidence that the official estimate of the death rate was "false."
"Errors happen in any crisis. But when a president insists on claiming success irrespective of reality, it becomes much harder for those under him to acknowledge and correct mistakes."
Pressed on plans to handle 3,500 people on board the Grand Princess, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson told ABC he didn't "want to preview the plan right now."