WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump's letter to the World Health Organisation earlier this week laid out a bill of grievances against the UN agency, which he has threatened to cut off from US funding, accusing it of being too close to China.

The first charge in the letter on Monday, however, was erroneous: that the WHO had ignored reports, including by The Lancet, of the coronavirus spreading in Wuhan in December or earlier.

The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, issued a statement on Tuesday saying that it did not publish its first reports on the coronavirus until Jan 24.

The journal chastised Mr Trump, saying his allegations "are serious and damaging to efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic".

The danger for Mr Trump is that his pronouncements risk evoking an air of desperation. Surveys show Americans growing less confident in his leadership as the nation's coronavirus death toll marches past 90,000, unemployment figures skyrocket from the economic collapse precipitated by the outbreak, and the virus intrudes even into the halls of the White House.

The President has shown an increasing hostility to science, threatening to solidify perceptions that he is too impatient or politically motivated to steer the nation through a generational crisis, exacerbating the risk that he will be held personally responsible if a second wave of the virus emerges.

BLOOMBERG