Trump now ‘all for masks’ as US unemployment figures show dip
● ‘I look like the Lone Ranger’ says president as he does sharp U-turn
US president Donald Trump appears to have shifted his stance on wearing a face covering in public, saying in an interview that he is “all for masks”.
The American leader even told Fox Business he thinks wearing a mask makes him look like the fictional Lone Ranger.
He said: “I’m all for masks. I think masks are good. People have seen me wearing one.
“If I were in a tight situation with people, I would, absolutely.”
His comments came a day after Republican lawmakers suggested that he wear a mask in public to set a good example for Americans.
Mr Trump has long resisted beingphotographedinamask. In early April, the Centres for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures were difficult to maintain.
Mr Trump immediately undercut the CDC guidance by flatly stating that he would not follow it, suggesting it would be unseemly for the president to wear a mask as he meets heads of state.
He has now sounded a different tone, saying: “I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked. OK. I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask, and I thought it looked OK.”
Mr Trump has suggested a federal mandate was unnecessary and continued to frame mask wearing as a matter of choice. His comments came as US unemployment fell to 11.1 per cent last month as the economy added a solid 4.8 million jobs, the government reported yesterday. But the job-market recovery may already be faltering because of a new round of closings and lay-offs triggered by a resurgence of the coronavirus.
While the jobless rate was down from 13.3 per cent in
May, it is still at a Depression-era level. And the data was gathered during the second week of June, just before a number of states began to reverse or suspend the reopenings of their economies to try to beat back the virus.
“This is a bit of a dated snapshot at this point,” said Jesse Edgerton, an economist at JP Morgan Chase.
The figures came as the number of confirmed infections per day in the US soared to an all-time high of 50,700, more than doubling over the past month, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The spike, centred primarily in the south and west, has led states such as California, Texas, Arizona and Florida to re-close or otherwise clamp down again on bars, restaurants,cinemas, beaches and swimming pools, throwing some workers out of a job for a second time.
Mr Trump said the jobs report showed the economy was “roaring back”, though he acknowledged there were still areas where “we’re putting out the flames” of the virus.
Economists expect the recovery to take longer than Mr Trump’s optimistic projections, with the unemployment rate likely to be near doubledigit levels by year’s end.
The shutdowns over the past two weeks will be reflected in the July unemployment report, to be released early next month.
While the job market improved for a second straight month, the US labour department report showed the US remains far short of regaining the colossal losses it suffered this spring. It has recouped roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs lost.
The re-closings are keeping lay-offs elevated: The number of Americans who sought unemployment benefits fell only slightly last week to 1.4 million, according to another report. Though the weekly figure has declined steadily since peaking in March, it is still extraordinarily high by historic standards.
And the total number of people who are drawing jobless benefits remains at 19 million.