President Trump Is Not Considering A National Coronavirus Lockdown, McEnany Confirms
(Screenshot/YouTube/White House)
President Donald Trump is not considering a national lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed Tuesday. Trump and Republicans have long pushed back on the idea of a mandatory national quarantine, citing the federal government’s lack of authority to do so under the Constitution. Trump called on state governors to institute distancing measures tailored to their own states this spring, resulting in widespread protests against governors who took a more severe route.
“The president is not considering a national lockdown,” says Kayleigh McEnany.
— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) August 4, 2020
Some experts say the lifting of current distancing measures across the country relies largely on the production of a successful coronavirus vaccine. White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci has said he is optimistic that a vaccine will be developed before 2021. The Trump administration’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ project is aimed at partnering the public and private sectors to develop a vaccine or therapeutics to combat COVID-19.
Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security told the Daily Caller it may be more than a year before life returns to what Americans thought of as normal in 2019, however.
Adalja said the development of a vaccine is one part of the solution, but that vaccine must then be mass-produced, a process which he says could take until 2022.