With Donald Trump’s approval rating plummeting as coronavirus cases in the US continue to rise, the president plans to resume daily briefings on the pandemic at the White House on Tuesday.
Keenly aware of the need to change perceptions of how he is handling the virus if he hopes to win re-election, Trump also came out for the first time on Monday as a supporter of facial masks.
Trump tweeted a picture of himself wearing a mask with the line: “Many people say that it is patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance.”
It represented a whiplash reversal by Trump, who was facing a Republican mutiny. Governors in 28 states have now made mask-wearing in public mandatory as virus cases have exploded across the south and west, mostly in states governed by Republicans.
The US recorded about 60,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday, up more than 30% in the last two weeks for a total of more than 3.8m. Deaths over the same period are up 64% and total confirmed deaths have passed 140,000.
For months, Trump has punished and exiled public health experts such as Dr Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who have advanced basic recommendations such as mask-wearing and hand-washing.
Trump’s mockery of his election rival Joe Biden for wearing a mask and his own refusal to wear one in the 19 weeks since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic helped to create a partisan divide on mask-wearing and provoke violent clashes in shops and streets.
But aides have reportedly shown polling to Trump demonstrating that he is out of step with the public. Eight out of 10 Americans, and 66% of Republicans, say they wear a mask all or most of the time when they leave home, an ABC News-Washington Post poll last week found.
The poll also found that only 38% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, down 13 points from March, and 60% disapprove, up 15.
It is unknown whether Trump’s plan to reverse those numbers includes any new action to fight the coronavirus. As the reality of the pandemic has settled in, criticism of the federal government’s failure to establish routine testing, contact tracing and supported isolation has intensified.
As negotiations continue over a new stimulus and relief package for the battered US economy, the White House is widely reported to want to cut new funding for testing and tracing and other efforts against the pandemic. While Senate Republicans aim to reduce special unemployment payments, Trump is pushing for a payroll tax cut, a move which would hit social security and Medicare in the middle of a public health crisis.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
