Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) told MNSBC's Katy Tur on Wednesday that President Trump's attempts to reopen the country too early amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic will result in thousands of people being killed from the virus. Rep. Nadler accused the president of rushing the reopening process to boost his chances of winning re-election.
"In terms of reopening, we have to be very, very careful. I know that the people are eager to reopen businesses. There are several things to consider. Number one, people are not going to come back to restaurants so fast when they’re worried about their own health. So that’s a little premature. Second of all, you can’t reopen businesses until we have enough testing that has been done. And far from enough testing has been done to justify allowing people to reduce the social distancing requirements," Nadler said.
"Again, we know that President Trump is trying to — for political reasons because he wants the economy to look good before his re-election, he’s trying to disregard the science and disregard the medical advice and get the businesses open again. But if that happens, it’s going to lead, predictably, to a lot more people getting sick and to another surge of the virus, another surge of sicknesses," he continued.
Tur asked if the House is reconsidering the deadline for businesses to rehire workers in order for the Paycheck Protection Program loans to be forgivable, since there might be a second wave of the coronavirus in the fall.
"We’re going to have to eliminate various deadlines or put them off for a long time...flow with it, not with artificial politically motivated deadlines. Now the president is trying to impose artificial politically motivated deadlines so that the economy can look good before the third quarter for the election," Nalder said. "But if that happens, we’ll simply get a lot — thousands and thousands of more people dead and we can’t do that."
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The White House coronavirus task force unveiled the guidelines for states to meet in order to reopen their economies and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 such as:
- States must have a downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) reported within a 14-day period.
- All hospitals must be able to treat all patients without crisis care.
- Implement a robust testing program for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing.
- States must have the ability to quickly set up safe and efficient screening and testing sites for symptomatic individuals and trace contacts of positive COVID-19 results.
- Must be able to protect the health and safety of workers in critical industries.
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