Analysis: The surgeon general is begging you to wear a mask. Trump finally agrees
“I’m pleading with your viewers. I’m begging you,” Jerome Adams said during the appearance before the conservative audience on “Fox & Friends.”
“Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say, ‘Wear a face covering.'”
So why no face mask requirement? “If you are going to have a federal mandate you have to have a federal enforcement mechanism and right now as scientist and an educator, I would rather help people understand why they should cooperate with wearing a mask and how they benefit from it, versus just simply saying we are going to force you to do it, particularly by sending in federal troops or using federal mechanisms,” Adams said.
Horrible, sick irony. Trump and other leaders did not lead the way in the US on encouraging face masks even after it was clear they helped stop the spread of Covid in part because they wanted to focus on reopening the country.
Admitting there’s a problem
There is clearly a new line from the White House and federal officials.
Trump used to deny there was a problem. Now he’s admitting to a “big flare-up in Florida, Texas, and a couple of other places.”
The assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Adm. Brett Giroir, said on CNN Monday, “There is no question we’re having a surge right now.”
That’s been clear for weeks in the continued high number of positive tests.
The growth is actually across most of the country, according to CNN’s report. As of Monday morning, 31 states have seen more new cases this past week compared to new cases from the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
- Los Angeles reported its highest number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in a day, with at least 2,216 people hospitalized. And more than half of the 2,848 new cases reported Sunday were among people under 41 years old, officials said.
- In Florida, at least 49 hospitals had no more ICU space available on Sunday, according to data from Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.
- Arizona reported its highest number of Covid-19 deaths in one day — 147 — according to the Covid Tracking Project and Johns Hopkins. At least two states reported record single-day case increases Saturday, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
Trump says he’ll get involved again
But his solution, rather than more federal money for testing and contact tracing, is a return to his own press conferences.
“I’ll get involved and we’ll start doing briefings,” he saId.
You might recall his previous briefings, which CNN’s Kevin Liptak describes as “a hallmark of the pandemic’s earlier days. They ceased after Trump repeatedly found himself sparring with reporters and going on tangents, including one about ingesting disinfectant.”
He also noted that Trump views this in terms of ratings rather than infections.
“I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public,” Trump said, adding they would likely resume on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET — the same time he typically briefed in the spring.
“We had a good slot. A lot of people were watching,” Trump said, using television ratings lingo to describe the sessions. “We had record numbers watching,” he said. “In the history of cable television there’s never been anything like it.”
One has to wonder how effective these new briefings will be if Trump spouts in the self-defeating way he did to Chris Wallace of Fox News on Sunday, in which he said he’ll be right eventually on Covid. How many people will die and how long will that take?
No, martial law is not ‘law and order’
Over the weekend we saw distressing images of protesters in Portland being plucked off the street by unidentifiable masked men.
Trump applauded those tactics at the White House Monday and said they’re on the way to other cities run, he said, by “liberal Democrats.”
That’s the President targeting cities run by his political opponents with a militarized police force.
That’s not normal. That shouldn’t be normal.
