Probably chronic underreporting.
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They also love air conditioning and huge malls though.
Trump’s words, as quoted in the article you linked, emphasis added:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs, you say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue; they don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t count their votes!
One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over. They’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”
Saying he called coronavirus a hoax is an ungenerous interpretation of his words, he’s refined his explanation of what he claimed to mean since then, and the Democrats are making too much of it. But grammatically, nope, saying he called coronavirus a hoax is absolutely one possible logical interpretation of his words, and definitely not outrageous and untrue. What he wanted to say, who the heck knows. What he actually said can easily be interpreted as “coronavirus is a hoax.”
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No it can’t. He’s clearly talking about the Democrats politicizing the issue.
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Then grammatically, what does “this” refer to?
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“This” refers to the Democrats politicizing the coronavirus.
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As used in the sentence, that’s not a noun. If he’d said “Democrats are engaging in politicization of the coronavirus”, or “Politicizing the virus is what they’re doing”, then sure, I’d agree with you.
Again, I suspect that he didn’t mean to say the coronavirus is a hoax (but who knows, really). However, that is certainly a logical and grammatically correct interpretation of the quote.
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If you read the passage and try not to take things out of context, the meaning is crystal clear. But some people want to create other meanings for their own purposes. Which is unfortunate considering the nature of the coronavirus threat.
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Interesting news out of Washington, from a Twitter thread, which I don’t really know how to link to properly, so sorry if I’ve messed up the sourcing. Basic idea, as I understand it: it looks like there’s been transmission in the community for six weeks, due to genetic similarities between the most recent case and one back on January 19 (and their differences from cases in China).
A couple of the quotes in the thread:
I believe we’re facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China.
This strongly suggests that there has been cryptic transmission in Washington State for the past 6 weeks.
An update, because I see people overly speculating on total outbreak size. Our best current expectation is a few hundred current infections. Expect more analyses tomorrow.
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And Pam Am went under not long after lockerbie
Those who are actually that worried about stocking up lots of food - rice, beans, oil, salt and vitamin tablets are all you need to survive healthily for a very very long time. I lived off only that for a year in my younger days while weight training and got in the shape of my life.
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50kg rice, 50kg beans, 1kg salt, 5L oil, and a couple of hundred vit tabs will last you 6 months plus.
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The passage I provided, as linked to in the article referenced attacking the Democrats, is not clear. “This is their new hoax” has a clear grammatical reference, and that is “Coronavirus”. With a generous interpretation, you can take it one way, presumably the intended way. With an ungenerous (and more grammatically rigorous) interpretation, it can be read another way. But it is definitely not crystal clear.
“Trump puts foot in mouth, Democrats make too much of it because it makes a good soundbite, Trump-loving-press gets angry because centrists take Trump literally” is how I’d read the story.
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Damn. I thought it would be under control since they treated the guy in a negative pressure room with a fuckin’ robot. But I guess he could have still managed to spread it within his community before he was contained. I remember reading that he took a couple modes of public transport on his way back.
In terms of Taiwan I do worry about America getting a serious outbreak. It’s easy to ban countries like Iran from entering without any political pushback. With America, I can see the Trump administration exerting lots of pressure to not ban its citizens from entering Taiwan or other countries, threatening them with consequences if they do.
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Amazing testing efforts from South Korea - does anyone know if we’ve got something similar in Taiwan?
Again, link to Twitter thread, so I’m not sure if I’m doing this right.
South Korea has gone through over 10,000 COVID-19 tests today. People who have any slightest of symptoms (or not) can even get themselves tested at these testing drive-thru stations. The whole process takes 10 mins.
https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/status/1233400273013338112?s=20
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How do you deal with the flatulence? 
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Dutch oven.
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I meant in a way where everybody survives…
You don’t. You let other people deal with it.
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