Trump says he wants to impose a two-week federal quarantine on some states as his part of his scheme to downplay the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump said before heading to Virginia to wave goodbye to a ship, “Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hotspot — New York, New Jersey maybe one or two other places, certain parts of Connecticut quarantined. I’m thinking about that right now. We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today we’ll do a quarantine — short term — two weeks for New York, probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.”
Trump was asked, “Restrict travel from those places?”
He answered, “Restrict travel because they’re having problems down in Florida. A lot of New Yorkers going down. We don’t want that.”
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Video:
Trump is going to quarantine states, which won't do anything to stop the rampant spread of the virus. Once again, Trump is too late in acting. pic.twitter.com/j4vTQ73zag
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 28, 2020
The virus isn’t being spread by people traveling in and out of the New York area. It was already in Florida. The coronavirus is already everywhere. The federal effort should be on preventing it from spreading more in communities and supporting the economic and medical crisis in states and localities.
Trump is trying to minimize the coronavirus as part of his harebrained and deadly scheme to “reopen the economy.”
It is a bad idea that is also too little too late.
As usual, Trump is too slow to act, and the action that he is taking is way behind the realities of the coronavirus epidemic.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association