<![CDATA[Coronavirus: Donald Trump's speech was meant to reassure, but it did just the opposite]>

US President Donald Trump's coronavirus address from the Oval Office on Wednesday night was meant to project confidence, show leadership in a time of crisis and otherwise reassure an anxious nation and world.

It didn't work out that way, say health, government policy and crisis management experts, pointing in part to the 1,000-point drop in stock futures even before his 10-minute nationally televised speech was finished.

"You had an uncomfortable president who looked like he didn't want to be there. He doesn't want to be the leader that the country, if not free world, wants him to be in a crisis," said Richard Levick, chief executive of Levick Strategic Communications.

"He is a reality-show expert," Levick added. "This is a real crisis. The happy ending is not guaranteed. The applause line is not guaranteed. You have to actually lead. He doesn't like that."

Public health experts say Trump's announcement that the US was blocking all incoming visitors from Europe for 30 days will prove largely ineffective given that the virus is already firmly rooted in the US and spreading rapidly. And his efforts to reassure the public that testing is widely available, medical experts are fully deployed and face masks widely available was not convincing and a case of too little, too late, they added.

His speech, only his second Oval Office address, followed weeks of denying the gravity of the coronavirus, spreading misinformation, deflecting blame onto Democrats and the media and contradicting highly regarded experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, observers said.

"He has such a bad track record, no one will believe him," said JB Silvers, professor of health finance at Case Western University in Ohio. "He can't help but make this a political thing. A Chinese virus? Viruses don't have nationalities."

"He could've ramped up testing much earlier," Silvers added. "Instead he told people, 'Don't worry, go back to work.' All the wrong things."

Governments around the world have struggled to cope with the spread of the virus, prepare adequately and take lessons from China and South Korea, which were hit early.

But Trump's speech also fell short from a policy standpoint, some said. Washington and the markets have been looking for direction, given the logjam and partisanship in Congress. That includes whether the president would support, albeit grudgingly, a Democratic package of economic stimulus measures, oppose specific parts or reject it outright in favour of a still unformed Republican plan.

"No one has a clear sign what he wants, what he will sign," said Jeffrey Wright, North America analyst with EurAsia Group. "It was a massive failure, one of the least effective presidential prime-time addresses in my memory."

Companies and markets hate uncertainty and want reassurance, which they're not getting said Zhaohui Chen, associate professor of commerce at the University of Virginia. "Investors are worried about the policy, that it may cause more harm to the economy," he said.

Communication and policy experts said there tend to be few obvious answers initially during a crisis, which puts a premium on relatively transparent leaders who can acknowledges what is known and unknown, build trust and work through complexities toward a solution.

"It's not so much what he did last night, it's what he did before. Never before has Trump's habit of making events about himself hurt him until now," said Eric Dezenhall, chief executive of public relations firm Dezenhall Resources.

"Standing with science officials and talk about how no one has seen such a scientific genius before him, that he should've become a doctor, we're not selling time-shares in the Caymans," he added.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies to lawmakers about coronavirus preparedness on Thursday. Photo: Getty Images/AFP alt=Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies to lawmakers about coronavirus preparedness on Thursday. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

Leslie Rosenthal, a writer from New Jersey, said the speech failed to reassure her as an ordinary citizen, and seemed to focus on the wrong issues.

"What I wanted to hear from the president was a solution to what's happening in this country right now," she said. "While stopping people from coming into the country might do something, it's about what's going on here. Where are the test kits? Where are the viral hotspots? I'm placing my trust in Dr. Fauci."

Trump is a skilled off-the-cuff orator at rallies, where he can energise and be energised by the crowd, communication experts said, and less adept at delivering prepared speeches, as seen on Wednesday night.

"He used a teleprompter, but still made misstatements in ways that rocked the market," said Levick. Most notable was his statement that his administration was blocking not just people but all cargo from Europe, a statement his office quickly walked back shortly after the speech, he said.

Also questionable was the decision to block travellers from the European continent but not from Britain, even though the UK is a global travel and financial hub.

"You can't ban people from some countries and not others," said Ron Waldman, a doctor, professor of global health and infectious disease specialist at George Washington University. "It makes no sense."

Trump hoped the speech would build confidence in the US economy, its health care system and his leadership. "The virus will not have a chance against us," he said. "No nation is more prepared."

But many experts had a different view.

"We're clearly unprepared," said Ali Khan, epidemiology professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a former director at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We don't even need to talk about a pandemic," he said, adding that even a bad flu outbreak would swamp American hospitals.

After playing down the economic and health risks from the coronavirus for weeks, the Trump administration kicked into gear on Monday, floating a blizzard of proposals to stimulate the economy. These include expanding loans to small businesses, increasing paid sick leave and extending tax relief for the hospitality industry. The White House and congressional leaders are now trying to hammer out an economic relief bill.

Trump's turnaround reflects, in part, a growing realisation that the disease is real, can't be tweeted away, can't be blamed on political opponents and seriously threatens his re-election prospects.

"He's definitely worried," said Silvers. "All those 'Democratic viruses' are going to cause him trouble."

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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