President Trump said Sunday he is extending his guidelines for Americans to stay at home because of the coronavirus until April 30, abandoning his hope of opening up business by Easter as modeling suggests the death toll could reach tens of thousands and peak two weeks from now.
He said the White House will release a new strategy for states by Tuesday and hopes to have everything up and running by June 1.
Mr. Trump on March 16 said he wanted Americans to work and learn at home, avoid non-essential travel and use takeout instead of entering restaurants through March 31.
He’s mused about a new plan that ranks U.S. counties by risk to get things humming by mid-April. Now, he says the peak death rate won’t come for two more weeks from now, so he extended the mitigation strategy through the end of April.
“Easter should be the peak number,” he said.
Mr. Trump pegged the decision to daunting modeling about the sheer scale of the pandemic and potential deaths.
“You’re talking about a potential of up to 2.2 million [deaths] and some people said it could even be higher than that,” he said. “And so if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000 … We all together have done a very good job.”
Members of his coronavirus task force said modeling is based on a variety of issues and “extremes,” so people shouldn’t assume the worst.
On Feb. 26, Mr. Trump said the number of COVID-19 cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
“We’re going very substantially down, not up,” he said.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump again spoke of the possibility of “massive depression, meaning mental depression” and “large numbers of suicides.” He also raised the likelihood of more drug addiction.
“You will see drugs being used like nobody ever used them before,” he said.
Mr. Trump was combative and defensive about his administration’s response to the crisis, railing against media outlets that are leery of carrying his briefings live and Democratic governors that have criticized his administration’s efforts.
“When they disrespecting me, they’re disrespecting the government,” Mr. Trump said.
Officials also said the U.S. had performed 894,000 tests for coronavirus as of close of business on Saturday. The rate of testing is far better than it was in the early days of the pandemic, as commercial testing comes online, though the administration is still prioritizing those who are hospitalized in doling out diagnostics.
The president also questioned the tremendous use of medical masks at an unnamed hospital in New York, noting use surged from 10,000-20,000 to 300,000 in recent days.
“Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? And we have that in a lot of different places. Because I just don’t see a practical standpoint how that’s possible to go from that to that, and we have that happening in 10 places, not to that extent, that was the highest number I’ve heard,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump comments appeared to imply masks were being siphoned off somehow instead of being used by health workers who are working around the clock, at great personal risk, to help people dying from the coronavirus in the hardest-hit part of the U.S.
“Something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters,” he said.
New York City has reported over 33,000 cases of the coronavirus and nearly 680 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
The president noted he grew up in New York and had never seen anything like the devastation hitting the city, as refrigerated trucks take away bodies.
“You see the black body bags. It’s not supplies, it’s people. I’ve never seen anything like it. These people are doing a fantastic job,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump said he ordered his Treasury and Labor secretaries to look into restoring the tax-deductibility of meals for corporations whose workers frequent restaurants, saying the idea came from a number of high-end chefs like Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck and Daniel Boulud who operate in New York.
He also said he wants to get cruise lines and other industries going again.
“We had the greatest economy in the history of the world three weeks ago,” said Mr. Trump, who’d hoped to highlight the economy as part of his reelection bid this year.
The president praised the Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency for building 2,900 hospital beds at the Javits Center in Manhattan, to free up space for coronavirus patients
“People have never seen anything like that,” Mr. Trump said.
“Everyone’s trying to figure out how they did it,” Mr. Trump added, noting that he, too, was a good builder in his private life.
He said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “expressed his thanks, which we appreciate.”
Mr. Trump on Saturday said he was considering a quarantine of the tri-state area around New York City, though it was unclear what authority, if any, he had to institute one.
Instead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days.
The president said he doesn’t think he scared anyone by floating the idea and that, instead, it compelled people to stay home.
Governors are pressuring Mr. Trump to use the full weight of his powers to expand the production of medical equipment and protective gear for health workers on the front lines. Nearly 137,000 people in the U.S. had become infected with the coronavirus in the U.S. as of late Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
Over 2,400 have died and 2,600 have recovered.
Mr. Trump said Florida’s requests for supplies have been fulfilled because they are “very aggressive.” He quickly pivoted, saying all governors should be happy.
“Florida has been taken care of, Michigan has been taken care of,” Mr. Trump said.
At the same time, Mr. Trump said he “doesn’t like” the governor of Washington state and that’s why he gets Vice President Mike Pence to call instead.
He said Democratic governors don’t want to give the administration credit and railed against cable networks like CNN as “fake news.”
“I want them to appreciate the incredible job we’re doing,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump said Humana and Cigna have waived copays for coronavirus treatments and he hopes other insurers do the same.
The president said an Ohio company is seeking approval for a technique that sterilizes masks of health workers up to 20 times.
“I guess that’s like getting 20 masks,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump also said New York is testing whether a malaria drug in combination with certain antibiotics works against the coronavirus in a trial involving over 1,000 people.
He also pointed to trials of a treatment that relies on antibodies in the blood plasma of patients who’ve recovered from the disease.
