Trump reposts a message on Twitter that is critical of Dr. Fauci.
President Trump publicly signaled his frustration on Sunday with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, after the doctor said more lives could have been saved from the coronavirus if the country had been shut down earlier.
Mr. Trump reposted a Twitter message that said “Time to #FireFauci” as he rejected criticism of his slow initial response to the pandemic that has now killed more than 22,000 people in the United States. The president privately has been irritated at times with Dr. Fauci, but the Twitter message was the most explicit he has been in letting that show publicly.
Mr. Trump retweeted a message from a former Republican congressional candidate. “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives,” said the tweet by DeAnna Lorraine, who got less than 2 percent of the vote in an open primary against Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month. “Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US at large. Time to #Fire Fauci.”
In reposting the message, Mr. Trump added: “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.”
The tweet came amid a flurry of messages blasted out by the president on Sunday defending his handling of the coronavirus, which has come under sharp criticism, and pointing the finger instead at China, the World Health Organization, President Barack Obama, the nation’s governors, Congress, Democrats generally and the news media.
Mr. Trump did not “ban China,” but he did block non-American citizens or permanent residents who had been in China in the past 14 days from coming into the United States starting on Feb. 2. Despite the policy, 40,000 Americans and other authorized travelers have still come into the country from China since that order.
Dr. Fauci and other public health experts were initially skeptical that the China travel restrictions would be useful when the president was first considering them, but then changed their minds and told Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, on the morning of Jan. 30 that they supported them.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly pointed back to those travel limits to defend his handling of the pandemic, but experts have said the limits were useful mainly to buy time that the administration did not then use to ramp up widespread testing and impose social distancing policies before infections could begin growing exponentially.
By mid-February, advisers had drafted a list of measures like school closures, sports and concert cancellations and stay-at-home orders, but the president did not embrace them until mid-March.Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said on Sunday that earlier imposition of such policies would have made a difference.
“I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives,” he said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right. Obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down.”
Dr. Fauci’s comments, and the president’s pushback, come at a critical time as Mr. Trump wrestles with how fast to begin reopening the country. Public health experts like Dr. Fauci have urged caution about resuming normal life too soon for fear of instigating another wave of illness and death, while the president’s economic advisers and others are anxious to restart businesses at a time when more than 16 million Americans have been put out of work.
The outbreak in New York may be leveling off, but at a high level.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday that 758 more people had died in New York State, but that other data showed that virus’s spread was slowing in the state. The governor’s morning update tracked closely with news from the state over the last week: daily death tolls approaching 800 and the rate of hospitalizations continuing to fall. The governor compared his experience of the outbreak to the film “Groundhog Day,” saying that each day felt like a repeat of the day before.
The number of people newly hospitalized, 53, was “the lowest number since we started doing these charts,” Mr. Cuomo said. The total number of people currently hospitalized statewide is now 18,707.
Mr. Cuomo again criticized the federal response to the coronavirus, saying that money had been misdirected, with states that were less hard hit getting a disproportionate share.
He said that he would sign an executive order requiring employers at essential businesses to provide employees with cloth or surgical face masks to wear when interacting with the public.
In all, the state has now had 9,385 deaths related to the coronavirus, the governor said.
New York City last week released preliminary data showing that the coronavirus is killing black and Latino New Yorkers at twice the rate that it is killing white New Yorkers.
Mr. de Blasio said there continued to be encouraging signs in the city’s fight against the virus. The number of those who needed to be intubated on a daily basis continued to fall, to about 70 patients a day from 200 to 300, he said.
The mayor added that the city had a large enough supply of ventilators to get through the week. He said that all city workers who had contact with the public would be required to wear face coverings starting Monday.
Mr. de Blasio repeated that progress in the fight against the virus was contingent on more testing, something that the city did not have the capability to provide for itself. He said that he had continued to ask the White House and FEMA for more testing.
A day after Mayor Bill de Blasio said that New York City schools would be closed for the remainder of the academic year, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo continued to insist that the final decision was his.
“We won’t open schools one minute sooner than they should be opened but we won’t open schools one minute later than they should be opened either,” the governor said Sunday. “I do not know what we will be doing in June,” he added, in a seeming rebuke to the mayor. “Nobody knows what we will be doing in June.”
The mayor first announced the extended closure on Saturday, seemingly confirming that more than three months of regular schooling for 1.1 million children would be lost because of the coronavirus. In a Saturday evening interview, he said that he was in charge the city’s school system, along with the schools chancellor, Richard A. Carranza.
De Blasio Used Last-Minute Text to Tell Cuomo Schools Would Stay Shut. The governor and mayor, who have long had a combative relationship, can’t seem to make peace during the biggest crisis of their careers.
Late on Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio made the momentous decision to keep New York City’s 1,800 public schools closed through the end of June. He told just a select few, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, who gave his blessing.
But Mr. de Blasio did not reach out to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, his fellow Democrat and frequent political foe, until Saturday morning. The mayor’s top aides said he called Mr. Cuomo just a few minutes before he was to announce the news to the public. Mr. de Blasio did not get through.
So the mayor sent a text message.
Less than three hours later, Mr. Cuomo used his news briefing to discount the mayor’s decision as a mere “opinion” and insisted that he, and not Mr. de Blasio, controlled the destiny of the city’s own school system, the nation’s largest. The governor’s office maintained that such short notice did not allow for such a major policy move to be seriously discussed or refined. And the governor was not pleased
The episode was a glaring example of the persistent dysfunction between the two men, an often small-bore turf war that now has surfaced during an urgent crisis in which nearly 800 New Yorkers are dying daily, adding to uncertainty over when and how the city will reopen.
Mr. Cuomo’s actions had the effect of putting the mayor’s leadership into question, said city officials. One reason City Hall officials gave Mr. Cuomo’s staff such short notice of the decision to close schools was that they were worried that he would once again contradict or subvert them. “He’s concerned about being made to look ineffectual,” said one person familiar with the mayor’s decision-making process.
The schism between the governor and the mayor is so pronounced that the two men have not appeared on the same stage since March 2, a day after the first case of coronavirus in the state — a woman from Manhattan who had traveled to Iran — was announced.
The governor did not sound hopeful on Sunday that there would be a quick détente with the mayor. We are where we were,” he said.
Where that is, exactly, may not be of great comfort to New Yorkers.
The two leaders have been squabbling over the power to take action in New York City since the early months of Mr. de Blasio’s tenure as mayor in 2014. Back then, they fought over funding for Mr. de Blasio’s signature initiative, universal prekindergarten. The mayor planned to fund the major project with a tax on wealthy New Yorkers, but Mr. Cuomo shot down that idea, though he provided $300 million in other funding.
Even an abbreviated list of their spats seems lengthy: There was the time Mr. Cuomo shut down the city’s subways in a snowstorm, without first telling Mr. de Blasio, or the time when they fought over whether to euthanize a single deer in Harlem. On more serious issues, Mr. Cuomo has overruled the city on a ban on plastic bags, enforced his will on subway repairs and recently demanded the de Blasio administration rein in Medicaid costs.
The sniping has continued during the coronavirus outbreak.
In mid-March, Mr. de Blasio began calling for a shelter-in-place order, similar to an order that had been issued in the Bay Area. Mr. Cuomo chafed at the mayor’s suggestion, saying he disliked the phrase, before unveiling — several days later — what was in effect a shelter-in-place order by another name: New York State on Pause.
Other mixed messages have included Mr. de Blasio’s call in early April for city residents to wear face coverings in public; Mr. Cuomo, who has not worn a mask in public, suggested such a move might engender “a false sense of security.” (On Sunday, Mr. Cuomo announced an order to employers to provide masks to any worker interacting with the public.) The two men have also differed on the timing of closing of city playgrounds and the cancellation of elective surgery.
The lack of coordination with Mr. de Blasio was probably jarring for the live national television audience now tuning in regularly to see Mr. Cuomo, who has struck a more beneficent tone in his daily briefings, praising adversaries like President Trump and scolding those seeking to politicize coronavirus. Indeed, just moments before he rebuffed the mayor, Mr. Cuomo had said, “We’ve kept politics out of this crisis.”
”I’ve worked very hard to do that, I’ve worked very hard to keep myself out of the politics,” Mr. Cuomo said on Saturday. “I have no personal politics.”
Such a statement, of course, probably provoked guffaws in certain quarters in Albany, where the governor’s taste for political combat — particularly with Mr. de Blasio — is as well known as his fondness for muscle cars. (He pulled up at a Sunday morning event in his vintage Pontiac GTO.)
Still, while Mr. Cuomo has basked in positive reviews about his steady and sympathetic response to the contagion, Mr. de Blasio has fielded persistent questions about whether his deliberate decision-making process has hampered the city’s coronavirus response. Top city health officials threatened to resign when the mayor hesitated to close schools, bars and restaurants.
F.D.A. chief urges caution on antibody tests.
Coronavirus antibody tests have not always been accurate in other countries, and the United States should be careful not to approve their use too quickly, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on Sunday.
Antibody tests are not designed to detect whether someone is infected now; they tell doctors whether the person has been exposed to the virus at some point, and may have acquired some degree of immunity. So far, the F.D.A. has approved only one such test.
“There are a number on the market that we haven’t validated,” Dr. Hahn said on the ABC program “This Week.” “We do expect that relatively soon.” Referring to reports from other countries of inaccurate antibody tests, he added: “I think it’s really important for the American people to know that we need tests that are accurate, reliable and reproducible.”
In an appearance on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Dr. Hahn said, “What we don’t want are wildly inaccurate tests.”
Lines for basic needs stretch across America.
Standing in line used to be an American pastime, whether it was camping outside movie theaters before a “Star Wars” premiere or shivering outside big-box stores to be the first inside on Black Friday.
The coronavirus has changed all that.
Now, millions of people across the country are risking their health to wait in tense, sometimes desperate, new lines for basic needs. Carefully spaced, people stretch around blocks and clog two-lane highways.
The scenes are especially jarring at a moment when freeways are empty and city centers are deserted. Public health officials are urging people to slow the transmission of the coronavirus by avoiding each other. “It’s worrisome,” said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington who studies pandemics. “It’s setting up unnecessary opportunities for transmission.”
Boris Johnson, out of the hospital, hails Britain’s National Health Service.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who contracted the coronavirus and spent time in intensive care, showered praise on his country’s often-criticized National Health Service after being released from the hospital on Sunday.
It was a major step forward in his recovery and a welcome relief for a nation whose death toll from the pandemic has surpassed 10,000 and whose political leadership has been hard hit by the contagion.
In a video posted on Twitter, he credited the National Health Service with saving his life, calling it “the beating heart of this country.” “It’s hard to find words to express my debt,” he said, looking a bit wan but speaking with his usual vigor.
GOP pushes voting by mail — with restrictions — while Trump attacks it as ‘corrupt’
The same week President Trump told the public that voting by mail is “corrupt” and “RIPE for FRAUD,” his own party was sending a very different message to Republican voters in Pennsylvania.
“Voting by mail is an easy, convenient and secure way to cast your ballot,” read a mail piece the Republican National Committee distributed across the Keystone State. “Return the attached official Republican Party mail-in ballot application to avoid lines and protect yourself from large crowds on Election Day.”
Despite the president’s rhetoric, state party leaders across the country are aggressively urging their voters to cast ballots by mail, GOP officials confirm. In addition, Republican officeholders in at least 16 states that do not have all-mail elections are encouraging people to vote absentee during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a tally by The Washington Post.
Among them are the Republican governors or secretaries of state in Georgia, Ohio, New Hampshire and Iowa, who announced in recent days that they would allow widespread voting by mail in upcoming elections.
Their moves come after decades in which Republicans have encouraged their voters to take advantage of absentee ballot rules, running sophisticated mail programs that targeted GOP supporters most likely to vote from home.
The apparent conflict between Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and his party’s long embrace of the tactic comes as the health crisis has spurred Democrats and civil rights groups to push to loosen restrictions on mail voting in many jurisdictions.
Experts said that mail balloting creates a risk of fraud by loosening the chain of custody of ballots, but they noted that such episodes are rare. The most prominent recent example came in a 2018 congressional race in North Carolina, when a GOP operative was charged with felonies as part of a ballot-tampering operation that is still under investigation.
States with extensive mail-balloting systems have enacted safeguards such as signature requirements that make such fraud virtually nonexistent, according to Republican and Democratic election officials.
Democrats and civil rights advocates say Trump and his party are trying to undermine confidence in voting by mail and suppress turnout even as they encourage their own voters with well-oiled mail operations.
They say that some of the restrictions Republicans want in place will have a disproportionate effect on minority communities and young people — an intentional effort, they say, to suppress turnout among people who tend to vote for Democrats.
“The Republican Party has now said, from the president down to the speaker of the Georgia Assembly, that they cannot win elections if everybody votes,” said Marc Elias, a D.C.-based election lawyer for the Democratic National Committee. “So they are desperate to ensure that voter turnout is low among young voters and minority voters.”
Questions loom about reopening the economy: ‘You can’t just pick a date and flip a switch.’
President Trump has been open about his eagerness to see the economy and some semblance of business as usual spring back to life as soon as possible. His surgeon general, Jerome Adams, in a television interview on Friday noted the potential for reopening the country — “place by place, bit by bit,” beginning as early as next month.
But on Sunday, officials still in the thick of the grim reality caused by the coronavirus pandemic urged caution, fearing that relaxing protective measures too early could cause the virus to surge once again.
In interviews on morning talk shows, governors and mayors acknowledged the delicate balance between aggressively combating the virus and limiting the economic pain, but they said that public health concerns were their priority.
“We could be pouring gas on the fire, even inadvertently,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, said in an interview with CNN. He said that returning to a semblance of life before the outbreak was crucial but, “It’s not Job No. 1., because right now, the house is on fire and Job No. 1 is to put the fire out.”
Mr. Trump has acknowledged the gravity of the question of when to reopen the country. But the decision is not entirely, or even primarily, his to make. And many governors have expressed wariness about lifting stay-at-home orders prematurely.
“Really, right now, the first thing is saving lives and keeping people safe,” Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We do also have to think about how do we eventually ramp up and get some folks back to work. But you can’t just pick a date and flip a switch. I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN that reopening the country would not be an “all or none” proposition. He said that governors would need to manage a “rolling re-entry,” guided by testing results and local risk levels. “I think it could probably start, at least in some ways, maybe next month,” he said on the network’s “State of the Union” program. But he added, “Don’t hold me to it.”
Policymakers should be thinking about the coronavirus as an 18-month problem, said Neel Kashkari, a Federal Reserve president who helped lead the response to the 2008 financial crisis as a Treasury Department official. “This could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us,” he said.
At one of the largest pork processing plants in the U.S., 238 employees got the virus. Now, it’s closing.
The operator of one of the country’s largest pork processing plants said on Sunday that it would shut down its facility in Sioux Falls, S.D., after 238 workers tested positive for the coronavirus. South Dakota’s governor said the outbreak represented more than half of the active cases in her state.
The plant, which is run by Smithfield Foods Inc., has 3,700 employees and produces 130 million servings of food per week, accounting for 4 to 5 percent of pork production in the United States, the company said.
Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive of Smithfield Foods, said in a statement on Sunday that the plant’s closure would put a significant strain on the food supply.
“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”
The closure came as food suppliers grapple with maintaining the safety of workers, many of whom are African-Americans, Latinos and immigrants, while keeping up with demand. Some plants have even offered financial incentives to keep employees on the job — cutting, deboning and packing chicken and beef.
At a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Georgia, three workers have recently died from the coronavirus, while the company halted operations at a pork plant in Iowa after more than two dozen workers tested positive.
JBS USA, the world’s largest meat processor, confirmed the death of one worker at a Colorado facility and shuttered a plant in Pennsylvania for two weeks. Cargill this week also closed a facility in Pennsylvania, where it produces steaks, ground beef and ground pork.
