US coronavirus task force could end this summer
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence says the White House coronavirus task force could wind down its work by early June.
Pence tells reporters at a White House briefing that the U.S. could be “in a very different place” by late May and early June. Pence says the administration is beginning to eye the Memorial Day to early June window as the appropriate time to have federal agencies manage the pandemic response in a more traditional way.
Pence’s comments came as an Associated Press analysis found infection rates rising even as states start to lift their lockdowns.
The vice president characterized the discussions as preliminary.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force coordinator, says the federal government will still keep a close eye on the data when if the task force disbands.
“It took us a while to build that capacity and we’ll make sure that we’re watching that at a federal level,” she said.
Trump in Arizona
Making himself Exhibit A for reopening the country, President Donald Trump visited an Arizona face mask factory Tuesday, using the trip to demonstrate his determination to see an easing of stay-at-home orders even as the coronavirus remains a dire threat.
Trump did not wear a mask despite guidelines saying they should be worn inside the factory at all times.
“The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. We have to open,” Trump declared as he left Washington on a trip that was more about the journey than the destination.
In Arizona, Trump acknowledged the human cost of returning to normalcy.
“I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” he said.
Trump had said he would don a face mask if the factory was “a mask environment,” but in the end he wore only safety goggles during a tour of the Honeywell facility. Nearly all factory workers and members of the press as well as some White House staff and Secret Service agents wore masks. Senior White House staff and Honeywell executives did not.
The president spent about three hours in Phoenix, touring the Honeywell factory and holding a roundtable on Native American issues. Aides said the trip would be worth the nearly eight hours of flight time as a symbolic show that the nation is taking steps back to normalcy. The trip was also expected to be a marker of Trump’s return to a regular travel schedule, as he hopes the nation, too, will begin to emerge from seven weeks of virus-imposed isolation.