On February 4, President Trump delivered his State of the Union Address, during which he addressed the threat to America from the coronavirus, asserting, “Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.”

While Trump was addressing problems facing the nation, House Speaker was fuming; as soon as Trump finished speaking she tore the printed copy of the speech up. Later, when she was asked why she did so, considering she had admonished Democrats to act with dignity, she snapped, “I tore up a manifesto of mistruths.” Gesturing to reporters, she continued, “It’s very hard for us to get you to talk about the issues that we are working on … it was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say. ‘This is not true.’ … I don’t need any lessons from anybody, especially the President of the United States, about dignity.”

On January 14, the World Health Organization tweeted that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus:

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG — World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

WHO declared on January 30 the 2019-nCoV outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, acknowledging, “The Committee also acknowledged that there are still many unknowns, cases have now been reported in five WHO regions in one month, and human-to-human transmission has occurred outside Wuhan and outside China.”

The very next day, on January 31, four days before the State of the Union speech, and the day after the World Health Organization finally admitted that there was human transmission of the coronavirus, Trump instituted a ban on people coming from China. Trump issued a statement asserting:

During Fiscal Year 2019, an average of more than 14,000 people traveled to the United States from China each day, via both direct and indirect flights. The United States Government is unable to effectively evaluate and monitor all of the travelers continuing to arrive from China. The potential for widespread transmission of the virus by infected individuals seeking to enter the United States threatens the security of our transportation system and infrastructure and the national security. Given the importance of protecting persons within the United States from the threat of this harmful communicable disease, I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of all aliens who were physically present within the People’s Republic of China, excluding the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States.

And what was Pelosi doing on January 31? She was busy with two things: condemning Trump’s travel ban that he had instituted three years before, and much more importantly for her, issuing a statement calling Senate Republicans “accomplices to the President’s cover-up,” and chortling that Trump was impeached forever, stating, “The President was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is impeached forever.”