INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
In a Wednesday evening address from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would issue a thirty-day
travel ban for travel from the European Union, a ban that would exclude the United Kingdom and has a number of notable exceptions
He is also looking to Congress, the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department to take steps to stimulate the United States
economy.
The steps are the latest effort by the government to tamp down on the spread of COVID-19.
We will be suspending all travel from
Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,& President Trump said, adding ''the new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight
These restrictions will be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground
There will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings
And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval.
The
President address painted a picture of a far more sweeping executive order though than the one he signed earlier today
That order is far more narrow in scope, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
The ban explicitly states &This
does not apply to legal permanent residents, (generally) immediate family members of United States citizens, and other individuals who are
identified in the proclamation,& which does not appear to coincide with the total ban implied by the President phrasing on live
television.
Also in contradiction to the Oval Office address, goods and cargo will not be subject to the ban.
The White House clarifies
the president's Europe travel ban "only applies to human beings, not goods and cargo
It tracks very similar to the proclamation issued for China.
The people transporting goods will not be admitted into the country, but the
goods will be."
mdash; Ana Swanson (@AnaSwanson) March 12, 2020
The president then turned from halting the spread of COVID-19 to bolstering
the American economy, which has been battered in recent weeks from fears of aftershocks from coronavirus.
The President said that he would
be authorizing the Small Business Administration to issue some $50 billion in loans to compensate businesses whose income is impacted by
efforts to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, funding subject to Congressional approval.That move should allow for more companies to
compensate workers for time spent in quarantine if they, or their family members, are ill.
The President also said, &Using emergency
authority, I will be instructing the Treasury Department to defer tax payments, without interest or penalties, for certain individuals and
businesses [that] are negatively impacted.& He continued, &This action will provide more than $200 billion of additional liquidity to the
economy.
President Trump issued a call to Congress to eliminate payroll taxes as another step to cushion the economic blow of a more
aggressive response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States
Finally, the address alluded to an agreement between the White House and
United States insurers that would have them &waive all [fees for] coronavirus treatments,& but according to a spokesperson for the
insurance lobby, the copayment waiver is only &For testing
Not for treatment.
Trump's claim tonight that health insurers "have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments" seems to
be news to them.
For testing
Not for treatment.& a spokesperson for the major insurance lobby AHIP says.
mdash; Sarah Owermohle (@owermohle) March 12, 2020
If the
President address was intended to calm the tumult emanating from stock markets over the coronavirus outbreak, it seems to be having the
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 1,114 points or 4.74% in pre-market trading
The Nasdaq was down 400 points or 5%.
And the unprecedented steps followed an already calamitous day on Wall Street and the wider world as
the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic and stocks again suffered massive losses in
trading.
COVID-19 officially declared a pandemic by the WHO, as deaths pass 4,000
As notable as the European travel ban is (and as
inexplicable as the exclusion of the U.K
may be), the President speech drew criticism for the things it did not include
Nicholas Burns, the former United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under PresidentGeorge W
Bush, wrote, &COVID-19 is not a ‘foreign virus&
It is a global threat that can only be resolved by working with, and not against, all the other nations of the world.
Missing in President
Trump speech—any responsibility to work with other countries to limit the twin crises, health and economic, from COVID-19
He should close ranks to work with China, Japan, South Korea, Europe+Iran
Instead, he thinks we can dig a moat around America.
mdash; Nicholas Burns (@RNicholasBurns) March 12, 2020
And while the President issued
assurances that the government was well-prepared to meet the challenge that the spread of COVID-19 poses, recent reporting indicates that
critical components for the COVID-19 test are facing shortages and there still not enough testing being done.
Johns Hopkins University is
currently tracking 1,281 people who have been infected with the disease in the United States and that number is likely to increase as more
So far, 36 people in the United States have died of the illness.
What would help would be greater transparency and open reporting on not
just the number of cases that have been confirmed, but the number of tests conducted in the United States However, reporting around the
spread of the disease has been limited since communications were centralized in the Office of the Vice President.
Apparently, the opacity on
coronavirus information has been by design
Since mid-January, the White House has designated that briefings on the coronavirus outbreak be classified, a decision which has limited the
ability of experts to attend inter-agency meetings, according to a report in Reuters.
We had some very critical people who did not have
security clearances who could not go,& one official told the newswire service
&These should not be classified meetings
It was unnecessary.
Apparently the classification was made at the insistence of the White House and the lack of free-flowing information may
have hindered the ability of various agencies to effectively respond to the spread of COVID-19 earlier.
When the disease was first
identified by a doctor in China, the country Communist government suppressed information and allowed for a citywide outbreak, which
eventually became the global pandemic the world is now facing
It appears that the United States is on its way to making the same mistakes.
But even as the President continues to issue assurances, more
and more aspects of American life are being disrupted
Nearly simultaneous with the president speech, the National Basketball Association canceled the remainder of its season after a player for
the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus, while the NCAA is going ahead with its annual championship tournaments to stadiums
Large gatherings are being called off in Washington State, California, and New York as mitigation measures to level the spread of the
disease are put into place.
Still, the person in the highest position in the government to coordinate an aggressive response remains
&The virus will not have a chance against us
No nation is more prepared, more resilient than the United States,& the President said.
