No, Trump didn’t say, ‘People are dying who have never died before’

The spread of the novel coronavirus has put President Donald Trump on TV screens across the nation as the White House task force gives regular press briefings on the U.S. response.

We’ve documented many of his remarks. But Trump never said that "people are dying who have never died before," despite what a number of social media posts have claimed.

One Facebook post, which said Trump made the comment on March 18, was flagged as part Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

We searched Google, Nexis and Factba.se, an interactive transcript website that tracks Trump’s public comments. We found no mention that "people are dying who have never died before."

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stated on January 28, 2020 in a tweet

Says drinking a bleach solution will prevent you from getting the coronavirus.

We also checked the official White House and C-Span transcripts for Trump’s midday press briefing with the White House task force and his afternoon press briefing following a meeting with nurses, both of which occurred March 18. We saw nothing there, either.

Finally, we found no tweets on the president’s account that included the made-up quote in question. Nor did we find any deleted Trump tweets on Politwoops, a database of deleted political tweets maintained by ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization.

Other fact-checkers also found no proof that Trump made the comment.

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