Coronavirus cases in the US exceeded 560,000 on Monday, as the Trump administration reviewed options on penalising the World Health Organisation and slashing funding.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to make recommendations this week for President Donald Trump to sanction the organisation, which he accuses of knowing about the pandemic months before it broke out.
“They could have called it months earlier," Mr Trump said this month. "They would have known, and they should have known, and they probably did know."
The administration is looking at placing conditions on, and possibly cutting, funding to the WHO.
The US is the biggest contributor to the organisation, but Mr Trump said last week that he could slash by more than half the annual funding, which is now $122 million (Dh448m).
The virus has now claimed more than 22,100 lives in the US, with the first reported mortality on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The vessel, which is moored in Guam in the Western Pacific, has at least 580 confirmed Covid-19 infections.
The spread of the virus has triggered a crisis in the navy leadership after the dismissal of captain Brett Crozier, who sounded the alarm about the infections two weeks ago.
The backlash from his dismissal led to the resignation of acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly last week.
There was another split in the administration between Mr Trump and the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Tony Fauci.
Mr Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr Fauci on Sunday evening, after the expert went on CNN and acknowledged that an early shutdown in February could have saved lives.
Dr Fauci, known for his candid and science-based opinions, undermined Mr Trump’s message that the administration acted early to fight the pandemic.
"Obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives," he said on Sunday.
The US public gave the celebrity doctor 27 more points than Mr Trump in a Yahoo YouGov poll on their handling of the pandemic.
Dr Fauci confirmed on Sunday that the administration had pushed back against “shutting things down” in February.
The statement angered Mr Trump, who retweeted a call with the “Fire Fauci” hashtag in response.
But by Monday, the US administration appeared to shift its focus towards China and the WHO.
Mr Trump has accused the organisation of being too close to China.
“They are very, very China-centric," he said. "China always seems to get the better of the argument and I don’t like that, I really don’t like that. I don’t think that’s appropriate."
The blame strategy is also part of Mr Trump's campaign messaging to direct blame at China and accuse his Democratic rival, former vice president Joe Biden, of being too close to Beijing.
But polls and the economic forecast indicated trouble for Mr Trump on Monday as US stocks opened lower, and projections of a second wave of Covid-19 slowed down the plans for reopening.
The Dow opened 0.4 per cent lower on Monday, and unemployment is expected to soar much higher in May.
While Mr Trump is pushing for reopening the country by May 1, the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, was more conservative.
Mr Redfield said on Sunday that a careful and gradual reopening was advised to prevent a second wave of infections.
