TRUMP PUSHES STATES TO LIFT CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS
US President Donald Trump has urged supporters to “LIBERATE” three states led by Democratic governors, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions.
This came as some states under Republican leadership edged toward easing up the mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.
A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Mr Trump tweeted the kind of rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA,” he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticising the federal response to the pandemic.
Mr Cuomo “should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining,”’ the president said.
Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Mr Trump put the burden back on them: “The States have to step up their TESTING!”
He claimed “very partisan voices” had spread “false and misleading information” about the nation’s testing capacity, but said “we’ll help New York and all of the other states get even better on their testing”.
At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.
In Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, non-essential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.
Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.
“We may be opening but we’re putting safety first,” Mr Trump said.
On Thursday, he outlined a threestep set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are reporting decreases in Covid-19 cases, assuring the nation’s governors: “You’re going to call your own shots.”
But governors from both parties suggested on Friday they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning they could not do it without help from Washington to expand testing.
West Virginia governor Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Mr Trump, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.
“I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing that’s going to endanger our people,” he said.
Washington’s Democrat governor Jay Inslee said Mr Trump’s tweets about “liberating” states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting Covid-19.
“His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence,” Mr Inslee said.
“We’ve seen it before. The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly.”
Democratic Virginia governor Ralph Northam said he and his staff were focused not on the president’s tweets, but on fighting a “biological war”.
“I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars,” said Mr Northam, who is a medical doctor. “I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives.”
The clash between Mr Trump and Mr Cuomo was personal, with the president complaining the governor had not said “thank you” for help received from Washington.
Mr Cuomo countered by saying: “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers? ‘Thank you to the federal government for participating in a federal emergency’.”
The official death toll in the US is nearing 35,000, with some 685,000 confirmed infections. Some 22 million people have lost their jobs.
Many Americans, especially in rural areas and other parts of the country that have not seen major outbreaks, have urged governors to reopen their economies. Protesters have taken to the streets in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan, where more than 3,000 turned out on Wednesday in what looked like one of the president’s rallies, with Make America Great Again hats and Trump flags.
Meanwhile, governments elsewhere in the world are wrestling with when and how to lift economically painful virus-control measures as unemployment rises.
Mandatory lockdowns to stop the spread of the new virus, which has so far infected more than 2.2 million people and for which there is no vaccine, have brought widespread hardship.
In a joint statement yesterday, a group of 13 countries, including Canada, Brazil, Italy and Germany, called for global co-operation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.
“It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods,” they said.
The group, which also includes Britain, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey, said it was committed to “work with all countries to coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimise disruptions and recover stronger”.
The countries emphasised the need to maintain “air, land and marine transportation links” to ensure the continued flow of goods including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travellers.
Most governments remain cautious, even as the economic toll rises.
Public health experts warn that easing shutdowns must be accompanied by wider testing and tracing of infected people to keep the virus from coming back.
Singapore, which has been held up as a model for other nations after taking strong measures to clamp down on the virus, reported a new daily record of 942 infections yesterday that saw its total surge to 5,992. The number of cases in the city-state has more than doubled in this week alone amid an explosion of cases among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories, that now make up 60% of Singapore’s infections.
Japan also reported a fresh surge of 556 new cases yesterday, pushing its total to over 10,000.
In Africa, the pandemic is only just getting under way.
The continent now has more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fifty-two of the continent’s 54 countries have reported the virus, with the total number of cases more than 19,800 as of yesterday morning.
Top leaders of China’s ruling Communist Party called for deficit spending and a more flexible monetary policy after the economy shrank 6.8% in the first three months of the year.
France’s lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget overnight that takes into account the government’s €110bn (£95bn) plan to save the economy from virus-related collapse.
The government has warned that France’s economy, one of the world’s biggest, could shrink 8% this year and see its worst recession since the Second World War.
The coronavirus outbreak has killed at least 154,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally which is based on figures that are supplied by government health authorities around the globe.