Donald Trump says the won’t close the country if a second wave of coronavirus hits. CNBC:
President Donald Trump said “we are not closing our country” if the U.S. is hit by a second wave of coronavirus infections.
“People say that’s a very distinct possibility, it’s standard,” Trump said when asked about a second wave during a tour of a Ford factory in Michigan.
“We are going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country,” Trump said. “We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out. But we are not closing our country.”
“People say that’s a very distinct possibility, it’s standard,” Trump said when asked about a second wave during a tour of a Ford factory in Michigan.
“We are going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country,” Trump said. “We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out. But we are not closing our country.”
Trump has previously said there may be “embers” of the pandemic that persist in the U.S. past the summer, but he maintains that they will be stamped out. Health experts, including those in the Trump administration, have said that the virus will likely continue to spread through the fall and winter, and may become even more difficult to combat once flu season begins.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told The Washington Post this week that he has “no doubt” there will be new waves of cases.
“The virus is not going to disappear,” he told Post. “It’s a highly transmissible virus. At any given time, it’s some place or another. As long as that’s the case, there’s a risk of resurgence.”
Now, if I was shamefully cynical I’d say the main reason why Trump wouldn’t close the country down is because experts have warned of a possible second wave in the fall or winter and above all he wants the economy in the ascent on election day.
And I’d also then suggest Trump would pressure the post office via the new Trump-appointee Postmaster General to find ways to hamper mail in boting, pursue ways to keep voting blocks that won’t support Trump from voting and keep the country open during a raging second wave so the end result would be far fewer votes cast — and increased chances of Trump/’s election.
I’d never suggest that.
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Image by Tibor Janosi Mozes from Pixabay
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.