Health Experts, Business Leaders, GOP Allies Sound Alarm at Trump’s Reckless Call to End Social Distancing Early
Swift Backlash to Trump’s Ignorant & Dangerous Comments as New Cases and Deaths Continue to Mount
Trump is being panned by experts, business leaders and elected officials of both parties for suggesting that he would take steps to end social distancing prematurely. Public health experts are warning that such action would only increase the death toll as they made clear we have not yet seen the peak of coronavirus cases, while elected officials pleaded with Trump to keep the social distance guidelines in place to keep Americans safe. It’s clear that President Trump’s blatant disregard for science continues to put lives at risk.
Public Health Experts Vehemently Disagree With Trump’s Talk Of Ending Social Distancing Prematurely
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Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb: “There’s a strong and understandable desire to return to better times and a functioning economy. But it should not be lost on anyone that there’s no such thing as a functioning economy and society so long as covid-19 continues to spread uncontrolled in our biggest cities…” [Twitter, Scott Gottlieb, 3/23/20]
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Johns Hopkins Center For Health Security Director Tom Inglesbee: “Anyone advising the end of social distancing now, needs to fully understand what the country will look like if we do that. COVID would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, could kill potentially millions in the yr ahead with huge social and economic impact across the country.” [Twitter, Tom Inglesbee, 2/23/20]
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Harvard T.H. Chan School Of Public Health Professor Howard Koh: “It is way too early to even consider rolling back any guidelines.” [Politico, 3/23/20]
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NYU Professor Of Bioethics Arthur Caplan: “Thirty days makes more sense than 15 days. Can’t we try to put people’s lives first for at least a month?” [New York Times, 3/23/20]
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President Trump’s Former Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert: “Sadly, the numbers now suggest the U.S. is poised to take the lead in #coronavirus cases. It’s reasonable to plan for the US to top the list of countries with the most cases in approximately 1 week. This does NOT make social intervention futile. It makes it imperative!’” [New York Times, 3/23/20]
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Harvard Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch: “We haven’t yet even seen signs that the growth is slowing, much less reversing. Now is the time to tighten restrictions on contacts that could transmit the virus, not loosen them… If we let up now we can be virtually certain that health care will be overwhelmed in many if not all parts of the country. This is the view of every well-informed infectious epidemiologist I know of.” [Washington Post, 3/23/2020]
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University Of Pennsylvania Department Of Medical Ethics And Health Policy Chair Dr. Zeke Emanuel: “If you lift the restrictions…you will allow [people] to spread the virus because a lot of those people, as noted, are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and think they have a cold, cough or mild fever…. You can’t minimize the economic damage until we actually get our arms around this public health emergency. After all, people are not going to go to Disney World if they think they can die or get coronavirus and end up in the intensive care unit.” [Twitter, Andrea Mitchell, 3/24/2020]
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American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association: “Physical distancing and staying at home are the key to slowing the spread of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) to give physicians, nurses and everyone on the front lines a fighting chance at having the equipment, time and resources necessary to take on this immense challenge.” [Letter To The American Public, American Hospital Association et al., 3/24/20]
Financial Industry And Business Leaders Pushed Back
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Bill Gates: “There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner.” [Vox, “Recode,” 3/24/20]
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Prudential Financial Inc. Chief Market Strategist Quincy Krosby: “You may get a [market] bounce on the headline… Or the market could down even more if the community of investors and traders believe this is the opposite of what is needed. Above all else it will be the empirical data that suggests the virus is receding.” [Washington Post, 3/24/20]
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Investment Firm CEO Adam Sarhan: “Adam Sarhan, CEO of investment firm 50 Park Investments, says the market will only stop plumbing new lows once new infections level off. ‘What the world, and the market, needs to see is that number stop going up,’ he says. ‘Think of it as a trade: What’s the risk of reopening early? …The risk is the number of cases continues to skyrocket, and longer term, you’re just digging a much deeper hole.’” [Washington Post, 3/24/20]
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RSM Chief Economist Joe Brusuelas: “US on way to 63k cases. You want to re-open the economy around acceptable trade-offs? That involves mandatory compulsory universal testing. We don’t even have enough tests for those that want one. What about a second or third wave & having to shut economy again?” [Washington Post, 3/24/20]
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The Former Chairman Of President Obama’s Council Of Economic Advisers Jason Furman: “The thing damaging our economy is a virus. Everyone who is trying to stop that virus is working to limit the damage it does to our economy and help our eventual rebound. The choice may well be taking pretty extreme steps now or taking very extreme steps later.” [New York Times, 3/23/20]
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US Chamber Of Commerce Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley: “’Our view is, when it comes to how you contain the virus, you do everything the public health professionals say to contain the virus.” [New York Times, 3/23/20]
Trump’s GOP Allies, Conservative Media Outlets Oppose Trump’s Plan
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Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD): “We don’t think that we’re going to be in any way ready to be out of this in five or six days or so, or whenever this 15 days is up from the time that they started this imaginary clock.’” [CNN, 3/24/220]
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Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH): “The truth is that protecting people and protecting the economy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one depends on the other. We save our economy by first saving lives. And we have to do it in that order.” [Twitter, Governor Mike DeWine, 3/24/20]
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Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY): “There will be no normally functioning economy if our hospitals are overwhelmed and thousands of Americans of all ages, including our doctors and nurses, lay dying because we have failed to do what’s necessary to stop the virus.” [Twitter, Liz Cheney, 3/24/20]
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Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “‘It would be a major mistake to suggest any change of course when it comes to containment,’ ‘You can’t have a functioning economy if you have hospitals overflowing. People aren’t going to go to work like that.’” [Washington Post, 2/23/20]
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Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA): “I think we need to be very cautious about that… I would love to see the economy up and going as soon as possible, but let’s make sure we’re taking care of people first.” [Twitter, Manu Raju, 3/24/20]
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Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein: “It would be an egregious error for [Trump] to change federal guidance and lean on state and local governments to prematurely open things up at a time when the virus is spreading rapidly and is nowhere near its peak.” [Washington Examiner, Phillip Klein, 3/24/20]
Other Governors Pushed Back
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY): “If it’s public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health. You cannot put a value on human life. You do the right thing.” [Twitter, Governor Andrew Cuomo, 3/23/20]
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California Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA): “We clearly are operating under a different set of assumptions… We’re moving in different direction.” [Axios, 3/24/20]
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Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (D-LA): “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of state and local governments.” [Shreveport Times, 3/24/2020]