Watch Live: President Trump To Declare National Emergency Over Covid-19

President Trump is set to hold a news conference at 3pmET to discuss the coronavirus as cases and deaths soar in the US.

The virus has killed at least 40 Americans and there are more than 1,700 cases nationwide as of Friday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

And set to get worse…

Bloomberg News reported he plans to declare a national emergency, a move that had been under consideration for some time.

As The Hill reports, declaring a national emergency would allow wider use of federal funds by state and local authorities, some of which have been overwhelmed by the fast-moving coronavirus.

The press conference will come as House lawmakers are likely to vote on sweeping legislation to provide financial help to victims.

We suspect Trump will also take this opportunity to blast the Obama administration (he spent part of Friday morning lashing out at them over its response to the swine flu), The Fed (for failing to take stronger action on the economy), and the current Democrats (he tweeted this morning that because we have had a very strong border policy, we have had 40 deaths related to CoronaVirus. If we had weak or open borders, that number would be many times higher!).

Watch Live (due to start at 3pmET):