WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his coronavirus task force would shift its focus to reviving U.S. business and social life, while acknowledging that reopening the economy could put more lives at risk.
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to Honeywell’s Vice President of Integrated Supply Chain Tony Stallings as Stallings shows him a protective mask during a tour of Honeywell’s facility manufacturing face masks for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., May 5, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
In a series of tweets, Trump said the White House task force he formed in March would not wind down, as he had suggested on Tuesday, but would instead add some advisers and focus on “SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN.”
Trump changed his mind after the reaction to his Tuesday announcement showed how popular the task force was, he said.
Asked later if Americans will have to accept the idea that by reopening there will likely be more deaths, Trump told reporters: “You have to be warriors, we can’t keep our country closed down for years and we have to do something. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but it could very well be the case.”
The Republican Trump administration and many state governors of both parties have emphasized the political and social pressures they face getting the U.S. economy going again.
More than 71,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and more than 1.2 million people have been infected, according to a Reuters tally.
Trump’s Twitter comments drew swift criticism from the leading Democrat in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who warned against easing stay-at-home and social-distancing restrictions without more testing for the virus.
“If you undermine science, if you underfund testing, if you exaggerate the opportunity that is out there for the economy at the risk of people dying, that’s not a plan,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus. So why are we going down that path?”
The White House task force to date has included medical professionals focused on battling the pandemic, some of whom have at times offered guidance at odds with Trump’s, including on when to ease restrictions.
White House guidelines say that the number of new cases must be trending downward for 14 days and that vastly expanded coronavirus testing and other safeguards must be put in place before the shutdowns can be phased out.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and most high-profile member of the task force, acknowledged in a CNN interview that he was losing the argument against reopening the country too quickly.
“There are counties and cities in which you can do that safely now, but there are others that if you do that, it’s really dangerous,” he said on Tuesday night.
A number of U.S. states saw a record increase in cases on Tuesday, including Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin. Minnesota has set a new record for cases nine out of the last 14 days, including 728 new cases on Wednesday.
Trump said the White House will add two or three new members to the task force, likely by Monday, who will focus on reopening. Fauci would remain on the task force along with Dr. Deborah Birx, who has served as its coordinator.
SOCIAL DISTANCING
State governors who have started lifting restrictions have said business reopenings will be gradual and that people should continue to observe social distancing and other guidelines.
But the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has clashed with Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp over his moves to reopen, said she saw people partying and celebrating on the annual Cinco de Mayo holiday on Tuesday.
“It was disappointing. And what was very clear was that people didn’t get anything past the message that we were open up for business,” she told CNN on Wednesday.
“They didn’t get to the part that said that this was still a deadly virus and that you needed to continue to socially distance and wear masks, and I think that’s the shortcoming of this order.”
Democratic governors of states hardest hit by the outbreak have at times been at odds with Trump over easing restrictions.
But even California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday announced plans to relax some restrictions if the data continues to see improvement.
Los Angeles’ downtown flower market opened on Wednesday for the first time since the shutdown after the city’s mayor gave some businesses the green light.
“It’s good that the stores are reopening. I have two kids. It has been hard,” said florist Gregorio Garcia, 35, as he pruned pink roses inside his small open-front store.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose state is the worst-hit by far, has started to outline criteria for loosening restrictions after a three-week decline in hospitalizations and a downtrend in the death count.
While the data indicated New York had “turned a corner,” new cases were increasing elsewhere, he told a daily briefing.
“You have states that are opening where you are still on the incline,” he said. “I think that’s a mistake.”
The New York City subway stopped running on Wednesday from 1 to 5 a.m. so that workers could deep-clean and disinfect trains after an order from Cuomo last week, in what was reportedly the first scheduled shutdown in the system’s 115-year-old history.
Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Lucia Mutikani and Jeff Mason in Washington, Maria Caspani and Nathan Layne in New York, Lucy Nicholson in Los Angeles, Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Howard Goller
