WH Virus Task Force Holds First Meeting In Two Months; 70,000 Americans Have Died Since Last Briefing; Pence Lies About Isolated Outbreaks, Cases Increasing In 30 States

The White House Coronavirus Task Force held its first press briefing in almost two months today. Since its last briefing, more than 70,000 Americans have died.

Mike Pence led the briefing and pretty much repeated the same shit he was saying two months ago. He said nothing about the testimony under oath yesterday from the head of the CDC that the number of cases is likely 10 times higher than reported. He refused to say that Americans should wear masks in public. He offered nothing more than "hope and prayers" to the sick and dying. He lied and lied and lied and lied ... And then he left, refusing to answer even one question.

Here's one particular lie:

Pence lies and lauds Trump for "suspend[ing] all travel from China," which never happened (travel was restricted but not suspended) pic.twitter.com/zCbsI3f7op

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2020

Travel was never suspended and it was never all. Trump has been lying about this for a long time. So has Joe Biden.

Pence claims "we flattened the curve," which is no longer true -- the trajectory of new US cases is now rising again pic.twitter.com/KrdmQ8A3W1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2020

Pence quickly ends the news conference after just a few questions as officials ignore shouted questions from reporters, including one to Dr. Fauci regarding "are these massive rallies okay in your opinion?" pic.twitter.com/YmTkmEL9I7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2020

Pence still not getting it IMO: "these are specific outbreaks."

There are *30* states w/increasing #COVID19 cases -- not a collection of isolated events. This is a pattern, a national tragedy, and a failure of a federal leadership pic.twitter.com/SNk8QHF8E7

— Tom Bollyky (@TomBollyky) June 26, 2020

Florida in one day has exceeded the total number of cases in Australia during the entire pandemic #auspol https://t.co/Xo4jXEYJJ7

— cameron stewart (@camstewarttheoz) June 26, 2020

2/ For context, previous one day record was 5,511. That was two days ago. Today is 8,942.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 26, 2020

I will just leave this right here as to why Florida had nearly 10,000 cases in one day. pic.twitter.com/4Op1LEjkMM

— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) June 27, 2020

For almost seven weeks - from May 2 to June 18 - the United States had only one day with more than 30,000 new cases.

The US topped 33,000 cases on both June 19 and 20.

In the last four days, the number of new cases has been:

June 23:  36,038 (most new cases since April 24)
June 24:  38,412 (first instance of consecutive days with 36,000+ new cases since pandemic began)
June 25:  40,212 (most new cases in US since pandemic began)
June 26:  47,341 (most new cases in US since pandemic began)