Trump labels himself a 'wartime president' combating coronavirus
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he views himself as a "wartime president" as his administration fights to contain the spread of coronavirus and mitigate the economic fallout from the global pandemic.
“I do, I actually do, I'm looking at it that way,” Trump told reporters during a press briefing at the White House when asked if he considered the U.S. to be on a wartime footing. "I look at it, I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president. I mean, that's what we're fighting."
Those comments followed a number of announcements from the president on an expanded coronavirus response across the federal government, including the invocation of the Defense Production Act, the deployment of military hospital ships to virus hotspots and the suspension of evictions and foreclosures by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Trump pointed to the havoc the virus has begun to wreak on the economy, telling reporters in the White House briefing room that the pandemic will require a response unseen since World War II.
“Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation,” he told reporters, offering examples like teenagers volunteering to fight in the war and workers sleeping on factory floors.
“To this day, nobody has ever seen like it, what they were able to do during World War II. Now it's our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together,” he continued. “It's the invisible enemy. That's always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy.”
"It's a very tough situation here. You have to do things. You have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago were the best they've ever been. And then one day you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy ... but we're doing it and we're doing it well.”
Trump also announced a slew of other measures aimed at blunting the spread of the virus, including that his administration is looking into self-administered coronavirus tests in an effort to dramatically expand access to tests for the fast-spreading disease.
Trump told reporters that his administration is working with “several groups” to determine whether a “self-swab” is as accurate as the tests health providers are currently performing.
He added he's pushing for speedy FDA approval of the self-swab test that people can do themselves. He didn’t elaborate on the timeline of getting the diagnostic to market, or who’s producing it.
“It would free up a lot,” Trump argued. The new process, he said, would be a “much easier process than the current process that's not very nice to do — I can tell you, because I did it. But we have a current process that's a little bit difficult, if you haven't done.”
Trump announced last weekend that the White House physician had tested him for coronavirus late Friday evening. Late Saturday his top spokesperson Stephanie Grisham issued a memo saying the president did not have the virus.
On Wednesday, Trump also said that he would invoke the Defense Production Act, which would significantly increase the production of critical equipment including hospital beds and other medical supplies by allowing the administration to direct U.S. industry to ramp up production of critical medical supplies.
Officials have repeatedly warned of a shortage of ventilators and respirators to treat patients who have tested positive for coronavirus, as well as masks for health care providers.
Administration officials couldn’t clarify how many ventilators are currently available around the country for critically sick COVID-19 patients, and Trump conceded the system was caught off-guard with the shortfall in ventilator supply — calling the situation a “very unforeseen thing.”
“We have tremendous numbers of ventilators but there's never been an instance like this, where no matter what you have it’s not enough,” Trump said.
Vice President Mike Pence said the government has more than 10,000 ventilators stockpiled to deploy out to hospitals, roughly echoing an estimate from over the weekend from top infectious disease doctor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had put the number at just under 13,000.
The Defense Department pledged Tuesday to send HHS about 2,000 ventilators to add to its stock — but as growing numbers of hospital report shortages, it’s unclear if supply can keep up with mounting critical cases.
Several local and state leaders had been pleading with Trump for several days to deploy military resources to assist in fighting the disease, including asking the Army Corps of Engineers to quickly erect hospitals to house coronavirus patients.
In another attempt to avoid overcrowding in hospitals, Pence on Wednesday also said the government was asking hospitals to delay elective procedures “across the country in our healthcare system to ensure that medical supplies and medical capacity go where they are needed most.”
Pence’s request stopped short of mandating the cancelation of elective procedures, a prospect some state and local officials have threatened.
He also confirmed that the military would deploy two hospital ships, sending one to New York — which has become the biggest hot spot on the East Coast — and sending one to an undetermined location on the West Coast.
In addition, Trump said that the Department of Housing and Urban development, in an attempt to provide “immediate relief,” would be suspending foreclosures and evictions through the end of April.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/18/trump-administration-self-swab-coronavirus-tests-135590