Donald Trump has cancelled his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters amid coronavirus fears, according to a senior White House official.
Trump “does not want to interfere with the CDC’s mission to protect the health and welfare of their people and the agency,” the White House official said on Friday.
The president, who visited the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, DC earlier this week, had been expected to land in Atlanta around 3 p.m. (ET) and tour the CDC facility while being briefing on the agency’s work on a possible vaccine and other countermeasures.
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It was not immediately clear, however, just why the president’s visit would affect the health of workers at the Atlanta facility.
A person with knowledge of the situation said the White House decided to play it safe because any presidential visit comes with a large footprint of staff and security personnel. “Better safe than sorry,” the person said Friday morning, referring to the risk of the virus entering the CDC facility inadvertently.
The cancellation comes after Mr Trump has been criticised by Democrats and some public health officials for downplaying the overall risk to Americans.
Even as his public health team has warned the number of US cases will inevitably grow and admits there are not enough testing kits deployed to meet demand, Mr Trump has referred to the deadly virus as “coronaflu” and joked about touching his face. Health experts warn too much face-touching can bring bacteria into one’s system, a possible way to contract the virus.
The US president was due to visit the CDC in Atlanta to sign a US$8 billion coronavirus funding bill to help tackle the outbreak. The legislation would provide federal public health agencies money for vaccines, tests and potential treatments, as well as help state and local governments prepare.
Mr Pence said at the time: “We are making progress. As I mentioned, federal assistance was approved by the United States Senate. President Trump is expected to sign the legislation tomorrow as he visits the CDC in Atlanta.”
The Senate passed the measure with a sweeping 96-1 vote to help address the outbreak and reassure the public that its rapid spread is under control.
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Shape Created with Sketch. Coronavirus: Streets around world left empty Show all 10 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Coronavirus: Streets around world left empty 1/10 A man wearing a face mask crosses a road in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Reuters 2/10 A view of the empty entrance to the Università Cattolica (Catholic University) in Milan, northern Italy, on 24 February, 2020. EPA 3/10 Empty streets in Daegu, South Korea, on 23 February, 2020. EPA 4/10 Empty streets in Daegu, South Korea, on 23 February 2020. EPA 5/10 A lone sanitation worker sits near the closed Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on February 24, 2020. Reuters 6/10 A view of a deserted street in Codogno, northern Italy, on February 23, 2020. EPA 7/10 Italian police officers set a road block in Codogno, Northern Italy, on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. AP 8/10 A supermarket closed in Codogno, one the northern Italian towns placed under lockdown, on February 23, 2020. EPA 9/10 A lone cyclist wearing sanitary masks pedals in the center of Codogno, Northern Italy. LaPresse via AP 10/10 An empty road at the entrance of the small Italian town of Codogno on February 23, 2020. AFP via Getty 1/10 A man wearing a face mask crosses a road in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Reuters 2/10 A view of the empty entrance to the Università Cattolica (Catholic University) in Milan, northern Italy, on 24 February, 2020. EPA 3/10 Empty streets in Daegu, South Korea, on 23 February, 2020. EPA 4/10 Empty streets in Daegu, South Korea, on 23 February 2020. EPA 5/10 A lone sanitation worker sits near the closed Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on February 24, 2020. Reuters 6/10 A view of a deserted street in Codogno, northern Italy, on February 23, 2020. EPA 7/10 Italian police officers set a road block in Codogno, Northern Italy, on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. AP 8/10 A supermarket closed in Codogno, one the northern Italian towns placed under lockdown, on February 23, 2020. EPA 9/10 A lone cyclist wearing sanitary masks pedals in the center of Codogno, Northern Italy. LaPresse via AP 10/10 An empty road at the entrance of the small Italian town of Codogno on February 23, 2020. AFP via Getty
Senator Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, said: “The American people are looking for leadership and want assurance that their government is up to the task of protecting their health and safety.”
The mooted plans come after Mr Trump denied the official global death rate for coronavirus reported by health officials because he had a “hunch” it is false.
He was responding to the 3.4 percent global death rate provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday.
During an interview with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity on Thursday, the president said: “I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number.
“Now this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild, they’ll get better very rapidly.
“They don’t even see a doctor, they don’t even call a doctor. You never heard about those people... Personally, I’d say the number is way under 1 percent,” he added.
thefirstandonly on March 6th, 2020 at 14:30 UTC »
Conservatives are basically saying Trump is powerless.
Don't let them get away with that bullshit. They're blaming whats happening on the CDC. South Korea and the US reported their first cases of the virus on the same day: 1/20/2020. But since that time, the US has tested only a few hundred people, whereas South Korea has tested nearly 150,000.
Why is this?
The US communication/network/interagecy infrastructure to coordinate response to things like this was dismantled under trump. The CDC is filled with GOOD and COMPETENT people, who really do want whats in the best interest of the public. It's just that the CDC is like any other agency of the US government, its ultimately under the thumb and direction of the President and must yield to its demands. Trump's only concern has been the markets, and he perceived any new cases as detrimental to that. The "task force" was a show piece, it never met, had no press conferences, and was only designed to stave off criticism of their early inaction.
For weeks the Trump admin position has been: DON'T TEST, DON'T TELL. And that's largely worked up until the first community transmissions became inevitable. Even now the US response remains very slow.
Trump is telling people as recently as this week, that the virus is a big nothing, and you should go to work sick. This is contrary to the official position of the CDC and other health experts. The big danger in this virus, even if its only 1-3% case fatality, is that it inundates the healthcare system once the spread goes wild. This is what Wuhan, and now Italy are dealing with. And about that 1-3% case fatality, that's still too fucking high, because we're SUPPOSED to give a shit about our older populations, immune compromised, etc.
Here's what conservative assholes were saying about a President's ability to deal with an outbreak when it was a democrat:
"I’m feeling a little sick myself. I’m just sick of a government that I’m paying for telling me not to worry and just trust them. I wish I could, but if they repeatedly lie to me I just don’t believe them anymore.” – 2014 Mike Huckabee talking about Obama & ebola
"I think very few people trust our government as being competent, I mean we have virtually incompetent leadership, so why would anybody trust our government to handle this crisis? And to think that we’re allowing people from West Africa to come in, and many of them are unchecked, come in and potentially cause a tremendous problem. – 2014 Trump talking about Obama & ebola
Foxnews article: Did Obama do enough to stop the Ebola outbreak?
Limbaugh was saying Obama wanted an outbreak of ebola in the US as punishment for white people / slavery
...
So there you have it.
Trump IS responsible for all of this at the end of the day. What's bad for all of us is that our response depends on Trump, a fucking idiot, whose fragile ego means the entire government has tailored its initial response, AND WILL TAILOR ITS FUTURE RESPONSE, to first and foremost, protecting him and his ego. You and your family come last.
OrphanFeast87 on March 6th, 2020 at 12:44 UTC »
Hey, what gives? I thought he just said that Covid wasn’t a big deal, and that people should still go to work regardless.
zombiebane on March 6th, 2020 at 12:44 UTC »
He should just go to work.