FactCheck.org's Weekly Update

Amid criticism over his administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that he had to overcome an Obama-era Food and Drug Administration “rule” to more quickly provide diagnostic tests to the American people. Experts, however, told us no such formal regulation was ever implemented under the previous administration.

At a town hall event in the swing state of Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump made several false and misleading claims, some of which we have repeatedly debunked before.

President Donald Trump has made a number of misleading statements about his decision on Jan. 31 to impose travel restrictions related to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The World Health Organization says that 3.4% of reported COVID-19 patients worldwide have died – a global fatality figure that President Donald Trump dismissed as “a false number.” It’s not a false number, although experts say Trump has a point that the fatality rate may ultimately be quite a bit less than 3.4%.

Democrats have criticized President Donald Trump for his administration’s response to the new coronavirus, making claims about cuts to public health programs and the silencing of government experts. But they haven’t always gotten their facts right.

President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of “politicizing” the new coronavirus, calling it “their new hoax.” Even after Trump explained his remarks, some Democrats — including Mike Bloomberg — continued to wrongly accuse Trump of describing the coronavirus as a “hoax.”

In recent interviews, former Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged that he was wrong to say he was “arrested” while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He was actually “stopped” and briefly “detained,” Biden said.

Beto O’Rourke’s endorsement of Joe Biden has been used as fuel for misinformation about the former vice president’s gun control policy. If elected president, Biden did not say he is “coming for your guns.”

Facebook posts, evidently intended as a prank, erroneously claim that the government — or specific states such as Michigan or Florida — has mandated that employers and schools close for two weeks in response to the coronavirus. No such announcement has been made.

Viral posts falsely claim President Donald Trump received more votes in the California primary than the top two Democratic candidates combined. Unofficial totals show that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden received 1,842,471 votes; Trump received 1,486,415.

An article circulating on social media claims without evidence that Pope Francis and two of his aides have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The Vatican has said the pope has a cold, “with no symptoms related to other pathologies.”

Posts on Facebook falsely claim to show screenshots of two tweets by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the U.S. coronavirus response. Schumer didn’t post the supposed tweet criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to bar travelers from China.

A meme with the false claim that “[t]he US is charging over $3,000 per test” for patients who may have COVID-19 has been circulating on social media. For now, the two agencies authorized to test for the illness are not billing patients.

A doctored image on social media shows members of the KKK carrying a Trump-Pence campaign banner. The original image, which predates President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign by several years, does not.

Viral Facebook posts use a photo of a vaccine for cows to falsely suggest that the novel coronavirus isn’t actually new, alleging it is proof of “how much the media controls people.” The cattle vaccine has nothing to do with the COVID-19 virus.