“I would say they compare things to where they were before,” said a senior Republican near the White House. “When you compare a disaster to a direct disaster, the disaster doesn’t look so bad.”
“I do not feel they know what ‘under control’ would look like,” the official added. ‘They do their best. It’s just one of those situations. I do not feel that they even know what the purpose is. ”
Trump is heading for the fall and winter months, which could prove even more dangerous for the nation, with the spread of Covid-19 coinciding with the flu season – a dangerous combination of public health officials have long feared.
“The fall could be devastating,” said Yale School of Medicine epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, adding that the Trump administration had devastated the summer months for the most part, leaving the nation no better protected than in June. “Someone will have to explain to me, 10 years from now, why they would make all these bad choices.”
Some allies in recent weeks have questioned whether Trump’s return of regular press releases will help his re-election campaign, worrying that the largely optimistic sessions – punctuated by the president’s president that the virus will eventually “disappear” – are in conflict with deepening economic and health crisis on the ground.
The White House has moved in recent weeks to sideline its less optimistic health officials and rely more heavily on Dr Scott Atlas, a new senior adviser whose Fox News appearance and focal pressure to reopen schools caught the attention of top assistants such as Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks.
Atlas is now attending a morning meeting, separate from the coronavirus task force, with other key assistants such as Kushner, adviser to President Kellyanne Conway, former adviser to Stephen Miller, Dr Deborah Birx, chief executive of the International Development Finance Corporation Adam Boehler , test expert Brad Smith and staff of top communications, according to the White House official. Sometimes Meadows joins in – though he has spent much of his time at Capitol Hill in recent weeks trying to negotiate a fourth economic stimulus package. Atlas, a neuroradiologist, also took to Wednesday’s invitation to the pop stage at Trump’s invitation and spoke at an event the same day about the need for schools to reopen.
The goal of the small group, the official said, is to ensure that the White House can make swift daily decisions about the Covid-19 response. But the group also happens to exclude many of the top care officials from the administration, such as the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the top infection expert, Dr Anthony Fauci.
“President Trump has led a historic response to all-American coronavirus – resulting in 100,000 ventilators purchased, critical PPE purchased for our frontline heroes and a robust testing regime, resulting in more than double the number of tests than any other country in the country. world, ”said White House Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Matthews. “This leadership will continue as we reopen the economy, accelerate the development of vaccines and therapies, and continue with an encouraging decline in American mortality.”
The reopening – as a lack of opening – of schools this fall provides another point of infection for Americans to grade the treatment of the virus administration.
Trump’s July push to fully open schools has collapsed in the face of state resistance and emerging caseloads throughout early August, as a growing number of schools and universities choose to start classes partially or completely online.
In Arizona – where Republican Gov. Doug Ducey initially advocated for attempts to fully open schools – the state now calls on counties to clear three benchmarks for controlling the spread of the virus before school districts in-person classes resume. One week before classes begin, Arizona State does not currently meet these criteria.
Those states that have tried to send children back to school have been hit with discouraged results. Twenty Mississippi schools have already reported cases of coronavirus, a number that the state health officer said Monday is likely to grow.
Cherokee County, Georgia, cut off a high school after identifying a rash of cases that left more than 1,000 students quarantined. That came after another of the state’s high schools was temporarily shut down in the wake of a series of positive tests recorded just days after photos of her full-fledged went viral.
“By Columbus Day, 80 percent of children in our country will be online, and it could be higher than that,” suggested Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “What we needed was a real, detailed plan to open schools and keep them safe so that children could stay there for a long time. We will end up with children who are for the most part remote for the rest of this pandemic. ”
Trump administration officials have largely supported efforts in recent weeks to persuade administrators to send children back to class, as it became increasingly clear that there was not much enthusiasm – or scientific evidence – for the Trump’s statements that children were “almost immune” to Covid-19.
Since telling governors beginning July that “it is the recommendation of your president and this task force that we reopen schools,” Vice President Mike Pence has rarely made schools a major topic of his weekly talks with state leaders.
“Pence has really more of a ‘let states make this decision’ kind of approach,” said one person familiar with the private conversations about the vice president’s attitude in recent weeks.
On Monday, Pence acknowledged to executives in his weekly call ensuring classroom safety will require additional funding – as the total amount of money remains a sticking point in stagnant negotiations in Congress over a next coronavirus relief package. The White House wants to earn about $ 100 billion for schools in the next piece of legislation, he added, while Democrats “came back with a much higher number.”
The White House later debuted a vague new set of recommendations for schools that included basic advice such as ensuring students and staff “understand the symptoms of COVID-19.”
“We want to be very, very safe and cautious,” Trump said Wednesday, in stark contrast to his Twitter mandate just a week ago to “OPEN THE SCHOOLS !!!” At the briefing on Wednesday, Trump said his administration was exploring the idea of directing federal school fees to parents instead of districts to give parents options if their local school did not open.
“When you sit at home in a basement and look at a computer, your brain starts to disappear,” Trump said at the briefing in an apparent whip to his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. “We have a lot of good experience there just by looking at what’s going on in politics.”
When the US kicks in the fall, the reaction to dealing with the White House with the coronavirus will continue to spread across party lines. On average, roughly 77 percent of Republicans are approved for Trump’s treatment of the coronavirus compared to just roughly 8 percent of Democrats. One Republican lobbyist claimed that some Americans would complain “until a fax machine arrives,” despite the moves the White House is trying to take.
But others blame the administration for reducing the threat of the virus. They argue that the months of setbacks and failures, likely to continue well into the fall, are the result of an administration opposed to developing any clear strategy to combat the virus – even as it counts for countless hours. has devoted itself to messaging and effectively trying to talk its way out of the crisis.
“It does not do much for clarity for the general public as it builds trust,” said one outside adviser of the mixed messages, lamenting that Trump is unable to make the more nuanced case that the administration is both aggressive fighting for severe outbreaks while laying the groundwork for a bright future. “His leadership style and model do not always invite a multifaceted approach.”
