Governments globally are working towards curbing the COVID-19 pandemic but the Trump administration has faced a lot of heat for the way the White House has dealt with Coronavirus. Mike Pence, however, has refuted that the White House is to be blamed for the situation. During a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer, Pence stated that it isn’t the White House that’s to blame — it’s China’s initial response to the pandemic.

“Well, the reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming,” Pence said. “The reality is that China’s been more transparent with regard to the coronavirus than certainly, they were with other infectious diseases over the last 15 years. But what appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, the outbreak was real in China.”

Though there have been a few instances where Trump has downplayed the severity of the virus, including his suggestion that this would be resolved by Easter, Pence said that he “couldn’t be more proud” with how this pandemic has been dealt with. Even in those instances where Trump’s claims seemed to be out of touch with the reality of the situation, Pence said that it was merely optimism for the American people.

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Pence’s statements regarding China were recently validated in a report from Bloomberg who said that U.S. Officials confirmed a report found China’s numbers underrepresented “both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease.” However, the report also points out that the Trump administration ignored information from U.S. Intelligence agency and the World Health Organization. 

What do you think of the White House’s response to Coronavirus? Sound off in the comments.