Trump defends US response to coronavirus

Before celebrating Black History Month in a ceremony in the East Room at the White House, President Donald Trump sat down with a group of the attendees and defended his administration's handling of the global health threat of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19.

The president complained the administration hasn't received adequate credit for the U.S. response and defended his decision several weeks ago to bar foreign nationals who had recently visited China from entering the U.S.

"I did one thing that a lot of people disagreed with, including many of the professionals, close the borders because they said it's too serious a move. Took tremendous heat," Trump said.

"For a while I said maybe I shouldn't have done that. And now it turned out to be great because we have so few people who have been affected," he said.

Top health officials from many states met this week in Washington with members of President Donald Trump's administration.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned public institutions, businesses and individuals to get ready for the disease, Trump has said there is no need to panic and that the U.S. is “very, very ready” to handle any outbreak.

Federal health officials have already burned through 105 million US dollars in emergency funding while preparing for the coronarvius.

Trump has requested an additional 2.5 billion US dollars to combat the virus, while congressional Democrats have proposed nearly four times that amount.

The president also repeated the claim he made at press conference a day earlier at the White House: that the drop in the stock market is partly due to fears among investors of what would happen if a Democrat won the presidential election in November.

"They see these characters up on stage," Trump said.

"And they see these people, and if any of these people ever did happen to assume the presidency, you would have a crash like you've never seen before," he said.