Remember when Trump... repeatedly said early in the COVID-19 pandemic that it was under control?

In the weeks preceding the unconstrained outbreak in the United States, Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus and claimed that his administration had done a great job in containing it.

China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2020

Among other remarks, he also claimed that warm weather would kill the virus, without evidence, saying, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” He also claimed about US cases that “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

The remarks were all made in late February. By March 1, there were 98 confirmed cases in the US. Mid-March, Trump said he’d score his administration’s response to COVID19 a 10/10. By the end of March, there were over 160,000 confirmed cases.

The New York Times – A Complete List of Trump’s Attempts to Play Down Coronavirus
Factbase – Interview: Trish Regan of Fox Business Interviews Donald Trump in Manchester, NH – February 10, 2020
WhiteHouse.gov – Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Conference
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)