From Reuters:
“Trump says he will invoke
wartime act to fight 'enemy' coronavirus”
U.S. President Donald Trump moved
on Wednesday to accelerate production of desperately needed medical equipment
to battle the coronavirus pandemic and said an estimate that U.S. unemployment
could conceivably reach 20 percent was a worst case scenario. Scrambling to address the virus after
initially down playing it, Trump said he is invoking the Defense Production
Act, putting in place a law that will allow the U.S. government to speed
production of masks, respirators, ventilators and other equipment needs. “We’re going to defeat the invisible enemy,”
said Trump, who said the unfolding crisis had basically made him a “war-time
president.” Trump said he would invoke
another law that would allow U.S. authorities to turn back migrants seeking to
cross the southern border of the United States illegally. The border will not
be closed, he said. Trump said a
hospital ship will be sent to hard-hit New York to help people affected by the
contagion, and that a second hospital ship will be deployed to the West Coast. He defended his description of the coronavirus
as “the Chinese virus” despite concerns among some Americans that he was making
an ethnic slur. “It’s not racist, not at
all. It comes from China,” he said of the illness whose origin has been traced
back to Wuhan, China. Trump, appearing
in the White House briefing room for what has now become a daily news
conference with his coronavirus task force, said he would sign the Defense
Production Act later on Wednesday. The
law, which dates back to the Korean War of the 1950s, grants the president
broad authority to “expedite and expand the supply of resources from the U.S.
industrial base to support military, energy, space, and homeland security
programs,” according to a summary on the Federal Emergency Management Agency
website. “We will be invoking the Defense Production Act just in case we need
it,” said Trump. Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin fanned fears of economic collapse on Wednesday by telling
lawmakers on Capitol Hill that 20 percent unemployment was an extreme possibility
should the virus have devastating effects on American businesses, many of which
are already under duress. “That’s an
abosllute total worst case scenario,” said Trump. “We’re nowhere near it.” Vice President Mike Pence, head of the
coronavirus task force, urged all Americans to put off elective surgery to
allow hospitals to concentrate on the rising influx of patients with the
COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by the new virus. Deborah Birx, a member of the task force,
urged young people to adhere to government guidelines, calling for a 15-day
effort to slow the spread of the virus. Young people are considered key
transmitters of the virus, which can be passed along even with mild or no
symptoms. There are now more than 7,000
U.S. cases of the illness and over 100 deaths.
^ After seeing what happened in
China and in Italy the US should have enacted this Act and have the Army Corps
of Engineers working to build hospitals across the country much sooner. At this
stage it is playing catch-up after initially denying there was going to be a
problem. That “putting your head in the sand” hasn’t done anyone any good. Hopefully
now that officials are officially taking this pandemic seriously we can do a
lot more to contain the spread. ^
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