MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump shifts primary focus to reviving US business and social life; Democrats criticize “undermining science”

In a series of tweets, Trump said the White House task force he formed in March would add some advisers and centre its attention on “SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN.”

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his coronavirus task force would shift its primary focus to reviving US business and social life while acknowledging that reopening the economy could put more lives at risk.

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 centre its attention 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 that reopening will lead to more deaths, Trump told reporters: “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 faced mounting pressure to ease stay-at-home orders and mandatory business closures that have ravaged the economy and thrown millions of Americans out of work, even as those measures succeeded in fighting the virus.

Public health experts warn of a new surge in case if re-openings occur without vastly expanded diagnostic screening and contact tracing.

Citing moves by about 30 states to relax restrictions this month, University of Washington researchers on Monday revised their model to project nearly 135,000 US coronavirus deaths by early August, almost double their previous forecast.

The United States is already more than halfway there, with at least 71,000 lives lost to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, out of 1.2 million-plus Americans known to be infected.

Trump's Twitter comments drew swift criticism from the leading Democrat in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who warned against easing restrictions prematurely.

“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?”

White House guidelines recommend that new case numbers trend downward for 14 days and that wide-scale testing and contact tracing be instituted before shutdowns are phased out.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and most high-profile member of Trump's task force, acknowledged 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 CNN Tuesday night.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 1,193,813 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 22,303 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 2,523 to 70,802.