The declaration makes federal funding that Democratic legislators and leaders have been advocating to get for weeks available to states and territories the Federal Emergency Management Agency covers. The United States has already reported at least 21,686 deaths and 546,874 coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In New York, the virus’ epicenter, more than 9,380 coronavirus patients had died by Sunday, The New York Times reported. D'neil Schmall, an ICU nurse in New York City, said weeping in an 8-minute video posted to her Facebook page Tuesday that there’s only so much anyone can take. “I’m tired of walking into rooms and your patient’s dead,” she said. “You just walk into a room, and there’s a dead body in there.” She said she feels “so much sadness” for fellow nurses and patients, “especially the ones that are hanging on by a thread.”

Schmall’s heartbreaking story is exactly the kind that should inspire action from elected officials. At the very least, the U.S. president shouldn’t be bragging about himself when people are dying. Trump, however, not only bragged, but he did so on the same day that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease specialist, admitted that if the president had followed expert advice sooner, “you could have saved lives.”

RELATED: Dr. Fauci reminds us of the obvious: Earlier coronavirus measures 'could have saved lives'

The entertainer-in-chief instead, spent weeks in denial about the virus. When he made his first public remarks about COVID-19 in a TV interview Jan. 22, Trump responded to a question asking him if he had any worries about the virus with: “No. Not at all.” He added: “And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” By late February, the president had repeatedly made false claims that the situation was getting better, The New York Times reported. "It’s going to disappear,” he said Feb. 27, 2020. “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Well, it hasn’t disappeared. People are still dying, but kudos to Trump for finding a silver lining to further inflate his ego.