With lives and the economy hanging in the balance, President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is hoping the county will be reopened by Easter, as he weighs how to refine nationwide social-distancing guidelines to put some workers back on the job amid the coronavirus outbreak.
As many public health officials call for stricter, not looser restrictions on public interactions, Trump said he was already looking toward easing the advisories that have sidelined workers, shuttered schools and led to a widespread economic slowdown.
“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said during a Fox News virtual town hall.
The U.S. is now more than a week into an unprecedented 15-day effort to encourage all Americans to drastically scale back their public activities.
“I gave it two weeks,” Trump said during the virtual town hall from the Rose Garden. He argued that tens of thousands of Americans die from the seasonal flu or in automobile accidents and “we don’t turn the country off.”
“We’ll assess at that time and we’ll give it some more time if we need a little more time, but we need to open this country up,” he added. “We have to go back to work, much sooner than people thought.”
The reassessment comes as the White House is encouraging lawmakers on Capitol Hill to pass a roughly $2 trillion stimulus package to ease the financial pain for Americans and hard-hit industries.
Appearing before the president at the virtual town hall, Vice President Mike Pence said Trump has asked for recommendations from the White House coronavirus task force for how he can send people back to work while minimizing the public health risk. He said Trump wants to find a way “to open America back up.”
Trump’s enthusiasm for getting people back to work comes as he takes stock of the political toll the outbreak is taking. It sets up a potential conflict with medical professionals, including many within his government, who have called for more social restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, not fewer.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, told WMAL on Tuesday that Trump has always heeded his recommendations.
“The president has listened to what I have said and to what the other people on the task force have said, when I have made recommendations he has taken them. He’s never countered or overridden me, the idea of just pitting one against the other is just not helpful,” Fauci said.
Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, told reporters Tuesday that “public health includes economic health.”
“That’s the key point. And it’s not either-or. It’s not either-or, and that’s why we’re taking a fresh look at it,” he said.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter.
“Our people want to return to work,” the president tweeted. “They will practice Social Distancing and all else, and Seniors will be watched over protectively & lovingly. We can do two things together. THE CURE CANNOT BE WORSE (by far) THAN THE PROBLEM!”
During a private conference call with roughly 30 conservative leaders on Tuesday, Pence reinforced Trump’s eagerness to lift coronavirus-related work and travel restrictions “in a matter of weeks, not months.”
Pence said there would be no formal decisions made until the current 15-day period of social distancing was complete when pressed on a specific timeline for lifting restrictions, according to a conference call participant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private discussion.
Pence told the group that accommodations would need to be made for the highest-risk populations if and when restrictions begin to be lifted.
(AP)
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3 Responses
This would matter if the President actually made any of the social distancing rules. He did not, they’ve been imposed by city, county, and state governments. The President can’t change them. So, why are we even bothering to publish the President’s irrelevant and irresponsible thoughts on the matter.
“The U.S. is now more than a week into an unprecedented 15-day effort to encourage all Americans to drastically scale back their public activities.”
Two weeks for who? I’m not in NY, in the rest of the country, one local mall just closed today, others are open. Just got an email that one national chain store just closed, this morning. Some offices finally let soem people work at home, a lot around the country still are not. A lot of places are just starting to test this week. A lot of cities that are shut down, only started today, others yesterday, most not yet at all.
These AP articles keep talking about shut-downs, social distancing, and 2 weeks. I don’t see many shutdowns, I’ve seen no social distancing, nor have heard of barely any from coast to coast, and 2 weeks from when and for who?
So far the only thing I’ve been barred from is going to shul. That’s it.
Also, none of the things I have seen have been opened or Shut-down by Trump. He seems out of the equation on a personal level.
1. “Police powers” are state not federal. Trump has a “bully pulpit”, but that’s all. If the Congress approves, he can spend lots of money. The economic devastation, world wide, is a more serious problem than the virus, even if caused by unjustified panic over said virus.
2. They have yet to make a case that this is anything more than a bad flu season. This virus tends to kill only elderly and sick people, and given that 1% of the population (that is several million people) die every year, it doesn’t seem to be having a giant impact. Without systematic testing to prove the contrary, there is every reason to believe that most people do not get seriously ill from this virus (i,e, most people get the virus, but without any trips to the hospital or morgue). The media accounts are highly sensational.
3. The decision of the frum community to ban minyanim may have a serious long term impact if in a few years the consensus is that Covid 19 was more hype than plague.