Trump declares national emergency, announces economic relief package
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump declared a national emergency to confront the spread of the coronavirus Friday as his administration reached an agreement with the House of Representaives on an economic relief package for Americans affected by the global pandemic.
Trump made the emergency announcement during a news conference in the Rose Garden. “The action I am taking will open up access to up to $50 billion of veryimportant and a large amount of money for states and territories and localities,” he said, adding that he had reached a new partnership with private companies to
“vastly increase and accelerate our capacity to test for the coronavirus.”
The relief bill would spend tens of billions of dollars on sick leave, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other measures to address the unfolding crisis. The House is expected to pass the legislation quickly, and Senate approval could come as early as Monday. Trump also announced a new website that would allow people to determine whether they need to be tested for the coronavirus. “Google is helping to develop a website, it is going to be very quickly done unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” he said.
The site will be built by Verily, the life sciences division of Google parent company Alphabet that focuses on research and development around health issues.
There were also questions about how quickly the drivethrough testing sites at major retailers and drugstore chains that Trump and his aides an
nounced Friday would be ready.
But despite the criticism directed by Democrats at Trump’s response to the pandemic, he struck a optimistic tone at the news conference as he praised the nation’s health officials.
“We are doing a great job and we have 40 people right now, 40, compare that with other countries that have many, many times that amount,” Trump said, apparently referring to deaths in the United States from the virus. As of Friday night, that number had risen to 48.
Trump began speaking before the financial markets closed Friday, the end of a volatile week. His remarks rallied investors as the Dow Jones industrial average rose by more than 9 percent Friday, recouping most of the losses from the previous day.
The administration has been taking increasingly aggressive steps to contain the outbreak.
His decision to close off much air travel from Europe widely criticized by Democrats two days ago looked prescient after the World Health Organization labeled Europe the new center of the pandemic.
He predicted that while up to 5 million additional tests are in the pipeline, the United
States won’t need nearly that many.
“We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly and conveniently, but we don’t want people to take a test if we feel that they shouldn’t be doing it and we don’t want everyone running out and taking only if you have certain symptoms,” he said.
The emergency declaration was the most far-reaching federal action to date to respond to the fast-spreading outbreak of disease that has not yet reached its peak in the United States. The coronavirus has sickened more than 144,000 worldwide and had killed nearly 5,400 by Friday. The number of infections is likely much higher.
The emergency declaration allows the administration to provide emergency funding to state and local governments and gives the Federal Emergency Management Agency responsibility for coordinating disaster relief. Trump said his action would also give the Health and Human Services secretary authority to waive several regulations and limitations in order “to deliver our people the care that they need.”
After facing heated, bipartisan criticism, the Trump administration announced a series of steps to boost the
availability of tests and said it would partner with the private sector to set up drive-through testing sites.
Government officials and executives of retailers, drugstores and other businesses described an assembly-line approach to test people in their cars and report back results in 24 hours. They said the effort could start as soon as Sunday.
The drive-through tests would be administered by state health workers and the members of the U.S. Public Health Service, according to three individuals familiar with the plans.
The bipartisan relief package is expected to amount to several tens of billions of dollars in aid for workers, state governments and low-income and uninsured people.
Declaring a national emergency can be helpful for marshaling resources, and some experts and groups, including the American Hospital Association, called for it to be done earlier. It’s important to stress that these declarations are administrative and provide flexibility in accessing resources and spending money, experts said. They are not done to signify that the country is in imminent danger.
A forecast this week from Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Dis
ease Control and Prevention, developed with colleagues at the nonprofit organization Resolve to Save Lives, offered a wide range of outcomes, depending on how many people get infected and how deadly the disease is. As few as 327 and as many as 1.635 million people could die of the disease, perhaps over the next two to three years, Frieden and his colleagues estimated.
The relief package, which House leaders negotiated with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, includes measures to boost paid family leave and unemployment insurance, ensure free coronavirus testing and strengthen nutritional aid such as food stamps.
Mnuchin said the agreement marked just the beginning of what is likely to be a multistage economic relief program that combines legislation with the use of Trump’s executive authority. The goal is to stave off or reduce the chances of a recession, which some financial analysts are predicting could hit in the months ahead of the election.
“I can assure you we will use whatever tools we need to make sure that the industries that are impacted by this get through this,” Mnuchin said Friday in an interview on CNBC.
On Friday, Trump announced that he was tempo
rarily waiving interest on all federal student loans. He also said the government would be buying large amounts of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Concerns about the coronavirus pandemic rippled across the globe Friday, as schools closed to millions of students; Paris’ famed Louvre Museum closed indefinitely and more large events were canceled, and the Group of Seven leaders planned a virtual crisis conference call for Monday.
Trump’s remarks came as the World Health Organization warned that Europe “has now become the epicenter” of the pandemic, and as more European Union nations took action shutting down schools, implementing travel restrictions and passing other emergency measures.
While the outbreaks have been worse in Asia and Europe, public health officials warn it will get worse in the United States before it gets better even as they urge the public to remain calm.
“There will be many more cases, but we’ll take care of that, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the president’s coronavirus task force. “And ultimately, as the president said, this will end.”