U.S Governors Reject Trump’s Dangerous Coronavirus Timeline

A recent post looked at Donald Trump's desperate desire to end social distancing and to send all Americans back to work to improve his re-election chances come November.  Boosting the stock market and keeping the economy from retracting is more important to Trump than the lives of American citizens.  Since we have a self-absorbed sociopath in the White House it is encouraging that a majority of the nation's governors are rejecting Trump's "imaginary timeline" to quote Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican.  Meanwhile, Hogan, Governor Northam of Virginia and the Mayor of Washington, D.C., announced a joint regional response to the COVID-19 crisis.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the adults in the room saying "no" to the petulant child's foolish statements.  (An exception to common sense and sanity -Texas’ lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick who said grandparents are willing to die to support the economy)  Here are article highlights:

Governors across the nation on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s new accelerated timeline for reopening the U.S. economy, as they continued to impose more restrictions on travel and public life in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The dismissal of Trump’s mid-April timeframe for a national reopening came from Republicans and Democrats, from leaders struggling to manage hot spots of the outbreak and those still bracing for the worst. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, the head of the National Governors Association and a Republican, called the messaging confusing since most leaders are still focused on enforcing the restrictions, not easing them. He accused the White House of running on a schedule made of some “imaginary clock.”

The pushback suggests Trump’s talk of an early reboot is unlikely to gain traction. In most cases, it’s state leaders — not the federal government — who are responsible for both imposing and lifting the stay-at-home orders and other restrictions intended to stop the contagion.

But the governors’ reaction also revealed the striking disconnect and growing tensions between Trump and the state leaders closer to the front lines of a crisis that threatens to overwhelm U.S. hospitals and claim thousands of lives.

As soon as next week, Trump wants to take another look at recommendations about business closures and self-isolation, and said Tuesday the country could reopen by Easter Sunday — less than a month away. “Our people want to return to work,” he said.

But governors suggested that view had little connection to the reality they’re facing. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said he and Trump are “clearly operating under a different set of assumptions.” California, home to 40 million people and the world’s fifth-largest economy, reported hundreds of new known cases of COVID 19 and now has more than 2,200, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday said the infection rate was doubling every three days and pleaded for more federal help as the number of cases in the state surpassed 20,000.

Even some of Trump’s usual allies are continuing to move ahead with tighter controls on travel, commerce and mobility, despite the president’s words. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has endorsed stay-at-home orders that continued to spread through the biggest cities. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said public health needed to come first, and South Dakota Gov. Krisiti Noem is stressing limiting business activity, not relaxing them. Among the few statehouse leaders to publicly endorse Trump’s view was Texas’ lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, 69, who on Monday suggested that people his age and older can “take care of ourselves ” as the nation gets back to work. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people over 65 are at higher risk for the disease. Hogan, the Maryland governor, told CNN. “We don’t think that we’re going to be in any way ready to be out of this in five or six days or so, or whenever this 15 days is up from the time that they started this imaginary clock.”