FURY UNMASKED
The city’s heavy use of medical supplies
scenario. Generally, the reality is somewhere in the middle,” Fauci said on CNN, before repeating his estimate in the Rose Garden. “Looking at what we’re seeing now, you know, I would say between 100 and 200,000 [deaths]. But I don’t want to be held to that.”
Meanwhile, a top White House economic adviser said millions of Americans reeling from the economic impact of coronavirus will probably get checks from the feds in “two weeks,” though he added there’s “no magic wand” to restore the economy.
“It may not be perfect, but I think it’s going to give a tremendous amount of resources to get us through what we still believe is going to be a question of weeks and months,” Larry Kudlow said Sunday of the recently passed $2 trillion relief package on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I can’t wave the magic wand. I wish I could,” he added. “I spent all my career being an optimist and trying to promote economic growth.”
The deal included onetime payments of $1,200 to individuals making up to $75,000 a year and $2,400 to married couples without kids making up to $150,000. Qualifying families get an extra $500 per child.
Kudlow said the feds would also make $350 billion in loans available to small businesses within a week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) voiced fury at Trump on Sunday, saying, “As the president fiddles, people are dying.”
Her remark echoed the famous phrase from ancient history, that the emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
“We should be taking every precaution. What the president — his denial at the beginning was deadly,” Pelosi fumed in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
She said Trump’s initial downplaying of the crisis has cost lives.
“The other day when he was signing the bill, he said — ‘just think — 20 days ago everything was great.’ No, everything wasn’t great,” Pelosi said. “We had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already. And in that 20 days, because we weren’t prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases.”
She also slammed delays to sending medical equipment to hard-hit localities and said the country still needs to ramp up testing efforts.
While Gov. Cuomo and de Blasio have come under fire for their initial responses to the epidemic — with Hizzoner saying as recently as March 13 that New Yorkers should go about their lives as usual — the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator held up the state as a model for the rest of the country to follow.
“At this moment, we are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now,“Dr. Deborah Birx said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
At Sunday’s news conference, Trump made a rambling reference to his upbringing not far from Queens’ Elmhurst Hospital Center, one of the hardest-hit health care sites in the city.
“This is essentially in my community in Queens,” he said. “I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before. I mean, I’ve seen them, but I’ve seen them on television in faraway lands. I’ve never seen them in our country.”