Virus now national emergency
President makes call; aid-package deal hit
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources, and the White House and House Democrats reached an agreement on a relief package to address the unfolding crisis.
The president in a news conference from the Rose Garden, said, “I am officially declaring a national emergency,” unleashing as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak. The funds will be used on sick leave, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other measures.
He also gave broad new authority to the health secretary, Alex Azar, who he said would now be able to waive regulations, giving doctors and hospitals more flexibility to respond to the virus, including making it easier to treat people remotely.
Cases in the U.S. have climbed to almost 2,000 and the death toll has risen to 41. The United States is facing the prospect that those numbers could grow expo
nentially, as they did in China, Italy, South Korea and other countries.
The president, in declaring a national emergency, said hospitals would now be able to “do as they want. They could do what they have to do.”
“I am officially declaring a national emergency, two very big words,” he said.
“I’m urging every state to set up emergency operations centers effective immediately,” he added.
Trump said he was waiving interest on student loans, and that with oil prices low, the government would buy large quantities of crude oil for the nation’s strategic reserve.
“I was very pleased to see that the president is using that authority” to declare an emergency, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said. “The thing that I think will be most helpful is his ability, because he’s taken this authority, to break down some of the red tape, and allow the hospitals to have a lot more flexibility in making decisions at the local level.”
TEST FOR TRUMP?
Also on Friday, Trump said he likely will be tested for the novel coronavirus “fairly soon,” as questions swirled about why the president, his top aides and his family weren’t doing more to protect themselves and others against covid-19.
Trump spent time last weekend with a top Brazilian official who tested positive for the virus after returning from a weekend at the president’s private club in Florida. And late Friday, news broke that a second person who was at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend had tested positive, according to a Republican official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private health matters.
The second person had attended Trump fundraiser at the president’s resort on Sunday.
The president, according to two people close to the White House, has resisted taking the test for fear it would project weakness or worry.
Trump continued to stress Friday that he is not exhibiting any symptoms of infection, but he skirted questions about whether he was being selfish by refusing to isolate himself when others who have had similar exposure have chosen to do so to avoid potentially infecting others. Asked whose advice people with similar exposure should listen to in the face of the contradictory messages, Trump said, “I think they have to listen to their doctors.”
Trump has also had repeated contact with lawmakers who were themselves exposed to people who later tested positive and chose to self-isolate out of an abundance of caution.
The president had up until Friday declined to be tested for the virus or to limit his contact with others, professing no concern about potential exposure as White House officials insisted they were following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Trump told the nation that, “We must take all precautions” and be “responsible for the actions” that we take and see others take.
Trump spent time last weekend with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s commu- nications director, Fabio Wajngarten, who tested positive just days later. Wajngarten posed for a photo with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club and attended a birthday party for Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is dating the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The president attended the party as well. There were also fears that Bolsonaro himself might have the virus, but he said Friday that he had tested negative.
The White House stressed that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence “had almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time.”
In addition to the Brazilian official, top administration officials, including Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, met last week with an Australian Cabinet minister who on Friday tested positive for the virus.
Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said he woke up with a temperature and sore throat on Friday, one week after his meeting with the Americans.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said Ivanka Trump worked from home Friday “out of an abundance of caution,” but said Dutton had been asymptomatic during their interaction and the White House medical unit determined she was “exhibiting no symptoms and does not need to self-quarantine.”
The CDC advises those who have been in “close contact with a person with symptomatic laboratory-confirmed covid-19” to remain home and practice social distancing.
People don’t show symptoms immediately after exposure to the virus; there is an incubation period of two to 14 days. However, not all exposures automatically put people at risk of infection: the CDC doesn’t consider it risky to walk past someone with the virus or to be briefly in the same room with them. The CDC is most concerned with close contact, which it defines as being coughed on by a patient or being within about 6 feet for a prolonged period of time such as while living with, visiting or sharing a room.
Many doctors across the country have been advising those who have been exposed to someone with the virus to isolate themselves. And Trump, who is 73, is considered to be at higher risk of developing serious complications because of his age.
The president should get tested, even if he is not exhib iting symptoms, said Stephen Morse, a Columbia University expert on the spread of diseases.
“If I were in that position I’d certainly want to be tested, rather than waiting until something happened,”said Morse. Beyond Trump’s own health, he said, he could pose a risk to others if he is infected and keeps meeting other political leaders.
“Anyone who’s infected is a risk of spreading it to other people,” and that can be true of people who are infected but don’t have symptoms, Morse said.
RELIEF PACKAGE
Meanwhile on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the virus-relief package agreement in a letter to fellow House Democrats. “We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.”
A vote to pass the legislation was expected later Friday in the House, and in the Senate next week.
The development occurred after a roller-coaster day that started with a deal seeming imminent, before it looked like it was unraveling over successive hours. House Republicans voiced concerns and Trump did as well, complaining at an afternoon news conference that Democrats were “not doing what’s right for the country.”
At one point Pelosi announced that Democrats would be moving forward with a vote, with or without Republicans on board.
But behind the scenes, Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued negotiations that began earlier this week. By early Friday evening they had spoken by phone 13 times that day alone.
Pelosi praised the legislation in a televised address Friday afternoon. “Put families first — today, we are passing a bill that does just that,” she said, laying out provisions of the legislation such as free testing, paid sick and family leave, and food assistance for poor families.
“Our nation, our great nation, has faced crises before,” she said. “And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism, patriotism and perseverance of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail, and we will come out stronger than before.”
House Republicans had appeared uneasy about some provisions in the package, which would expand federal spending on Medicaid and provide for federal reimbursement for paid sick leave as well as family and medical leave.
Compounding the GOP concern was Trump’s insistence on instituting a broad payroll-tax cut to stimulate the economy. He said in a morning tweet that such a cut, increasing paychecks by 7.65% for most wage earners, was essential to any recovery package.
“Only that will make a big difference!” he wrote.
The legislation negotiated between Pelosi and Mnuchin did not include a payroll-tax cut, and that omission emerged as one of the obstacles to reaching a deal, according to a senior administration official.
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free-testing and sick-pay provisions.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s health care system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people self-quarantining or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship. Small and midsize employers will be reimbursed through tax credits. There is also three months of paid family and medical leave.
Information for this article was contributed by Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller, Lisa Mascaro, Andrew Taylor, Lauran Neergaard, Michael Stobbe, Aamer Madhani, Alan Fram, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Martin Crutsinger, Laurie Kellman, Michael Balsamo and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; by Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane and Jeff Stein of The Washington Post; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.