There were two major press conferences yesterday on the state of play of US preparations for what the World Health Organization (WHO) is now referring to as the “very real threat” of a pandemic.

One featured a figure appearing presidential — perhaps the most presidential he has yet appeared. The other featured the president.

In his appearance alongside Vice President Mike Pence and his largely silent coronavirus task force, Donald Trump spent a perfunctory two and a half minutes describing how “tremendous” his response has been, and offered a promise of financial assistance for the cruise ship, hotel, and airline industries, as well as payroll tax cuts and loans for small businesses, before quickly ducking out to avoid reporters’ questions about whether he had been tested for the virus himself given that he has potentially been exposed to the disease via one degree of separation. Wall Street executives including the heads of the nation’s seven largest banks — world-renowned for their considerable epidemiological expertise — have also been invited to the White House to discuss how to respond to the outbreak.