White House trade adviser warned Trump of risks of a pandemic:NYT

At the end of January this year, White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro warned US President Donald Trump about the severe consequences that the spread of a new coronavirus can lead in the country. However, the American leader began to take appropriate measures much later actively, Report says, citing New York Times.

As noted in the material, Navarro's memo reviewed by journalists emphasized that the virus" could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.." The document is dated January 29. According to the publication, at that time, "Trump was still downplaying the threat of the virus, and later he said that no one could have predicted such a devastating outcome."

Navarro went on to emphasize that the "risk of a worst-case pandemic scenario should not be overlooked," given the information coming from China. "Trump approved the limits on travel from China the next day, though it would be weeks before he began taking more aggressive steps to head off the spread of the virus," the statement reads.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, which conducts calculations based on data from federal and local authorities, US has so far recorded more than 358 thousand cases of coronavirus infection. More than 10.9 thousand people died.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities announced an outbreak of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan. The causative agent of the disease is a new type of coronavirus, which has the official name COVID-2019.