Trump Strikes More Somber Tone As He Shares New Guidelines That Encourage Social Distancing, Limit Unnecessary Travel

Reuters: Trump Urges U.S. To Halt Most Social Activity In Virus Fight, Warns Of Recession
President Donald Trump urged Americans on Monday to halt most social activities for 15 days and not congregate in groups larger than 10 people in a newly aggressive effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. Announcing new guidelines from his coronavirus task force, the president said people should avoid discretionary travel and not go to bars, restaurants, food courts or gyms. (Mason and Holland, 3/16)

Politico: A Chastened Trump Presents A Newly Somber Tone
Faced with a reality that the nation he oversees needs to take dramatic action or follow in the footsteps of deeply troubled nations abroad, the president took on a newly somber tone about a virus outbreak he spent months downplaying. “I’m glad to see that you’re practicing social distancing,” Trump quipped as he stepped up to the lectern in an unscheduled appearance at the sparsely populated James S. Brady briefing room in the White House, where reporters were arranged with open seats between them. It was a short moment of levity for Trump before he laid out dramatic new guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of the virus and saving lives. (McGraw, Orr and Kumar, 3/16)

The New York Times: Trump Urges Limits Amid Pandemic, But Stops Short Of National Mandates
The national guidelines, which also advise home-schooling and the curtailing of visits to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, are the most robust response so far from the Trump administration. But the guidelines, which officials described as a trial set, are not mandatory and fall short of a national quarantine and internal travel restrictions, which many health officials had urged. And they do not reflect the urgency of actions taken around the world as governments in Italy, France, Spain and elsewhere began imposing stringent lockdowns on citizens. Even within the United States, local governments were imposing shelter-at-home orders and police-enforced quarantine zones. (Rogers and Cochrane, 3/16)

The New York Times: No More Than 10 People In One Place, Trump Said. But Why?
But where did that number come from? The variations in crowd size requirements and recommendations from assorted government authorities may add to confusion about what people should do to protect themselves and prevent transmission of disease. “It feels like somebody is using a Magic 8-Ball to make these decisions,” said Kelly Hills, a bioethicist and co-founder of the consulting firm Rogue Bioethics. “There is no consistency. There doesn’t even seem to be consistency in who’s making these decisions.” (Sheikh, 3/16)

The Hill: Trump Says Coronavirus Crisis Could Go Through July Or August 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, clarified after Trump’s remarks that the guidelines would not necessarily last until the summer months but rather that timeline was one potential trajectory of the coronavirus outbreak. “The guidelines are a 15 day trial guideline to be reconsidering,” Fauci said. “It isn’t that these guidelines are going to be in effect until July. What the president was saying is that the trajectory of the outbreak may go until then.” (Samuels and Chalfant, 3/16)

The Associated Press: A Somber Trump Urges Americans To Follow Virus Guidelines
The president, when asked when the pandemic would subside, said that “if we do a really good job" the crisis could pass by the height of summer. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration's infectious disease expert, did not challenge that claim. Trump's prediction was far less optimistic than his earlier ones, when he insisted it could be over in weeks. He also acknowledged that the virus may send the nation's economy into a recession, a potentially brutal blow for an incumbent seeking reelection. (Lemire, Taylor and Colvin, 3/17)

Politico: 'This Is A Very Bad One': Trump Issues New Guidelines To Stem Coronavirus Spread
“We have an invisible enemy,” the president said at a news conference, where he released guidelines that called for people to avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, steer clear of eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and food courts, and work or attend school from home whenever possible. “This is a bad one. This is a very bad one.” (McCaskill, Kenen and Cancryn, 3/16)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S., World Leaders Step Up Efforts To Slow Spread Of Coronavirus 
Mr. Trump said he wasn’t currently considering a nationwide lockdown or domestic travel restrictions. He said the outbreak could last until July or August. “It’s bad, but we’re going to be, hopefully, a best case, not a worst case,” he said. (Ansari, Restuccia, Lin and Lucey, 3/16)

CNN: Trump Says He's Considering Recommending Quarantine For Coronavirus 'Hotspots' 
"At this point, not nationwide, but ... we may look at certain areas, certain hotspots, as they call them. We'll be looking at that," Trump said during a White House press briefing. But the President added that no decisions had been taken regarding a national curfew. "We haven't really determined to do that at all and hopefully we won't have to," he said. "That's a very big step." "It's a step we can take, but we have not decided to do it," he added. (Starr, Klein and Vazquez, 3/16)

The Washington Post: Americans Kept Wondering What The President Wanted Them To Do About Coronavirus. Finally, Trump Offered Some Guidance.
President Trump for weeks dismissed the danger of the novel coronavirus. He distracted himself by stoking unrelated feuds and nursing grievances. He shared little concrete information about the spreading pandemic, and much of what he did share was false. Governors and mayors, as well as leaders of businesses large and small, stepped into the leadership vacuum to make difficult decisions affecting their constituents, employees or customers. In the absence of unambiguous guidance from the president for the citizens he was elected to lead, the frustration of governors boiled over. (Rucker, 3/16)

The Hill: Trump Gives Himself 10 Out Of 10 On Coronavirus Response 
President Trump told reporters Monday that he would rate his administration’s response to the coronavirus a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. “I’d rate it a 10,” Trump said at a White House press briefing Monday when asked by a reporter how he would rate his response to the pandemic. The president pointed to his administration’s decision early on to restrict travel from China, where the coronavirus originated. (Chalfant, 3/16)

Stat: Trump Urges People To Avoid Travel And Limit Gatherings To Fewer Than 10
The virus, which has killed 7,000 people worldwide and sickened over 4,000 Americans, has spread rapidly throughout the United States in recent weeks. Hundreds of local governments had already banned public gatherings and shuttered schools, restaurants, and bars. Public health officials have uniformly urged residents to practice social distancing — all in an effort to slow the rate of new infections and ensure the nation’s health care system maintains capacity to care for the severely ill. (Facher, 3/16)

ABC News: Trump And Key Advisers Didn't Appear To Succeed At Social Distancing Amid Coronavirus Pandemic 
Holding fundraisers. Shaking hands. Taking photographs. All of these would have been a very normal part of life for any politician, except that President Donald Trump and members of his administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, did so amid the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and despite advice from top public health officials to the contrary. (Rubin, Kim and Steakin, 3/17)

Reuters: There Will Be 'Dramatic' Change In Coronavirus Spread If Americans Follow Guidelines-Official
There will be a "dramatic" change in the spread of coronavirus if Americans follow guidelines issued by the White House on Monday to fight virus, a member of the White House coronavirus task force said. "If everybody in America does what we ask for over the next 15 days, we will see a dramatic difference," Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said at a White House briefing also addressed by President Donald Trump. (3/16)

CIDRAP: Trump Admits COVID-19 Severity As White House Tightens Guidance
Deborah Birx, MD, the coronavirus response coordinator, said the recommendation came from the latest modeling studies. She also issued a personal plea to millennials, the largest population demographic in the United States, composed of young adults aged 25 to 40. Though that population is not at great risk for severe complications from the virus, they are the most mobile in society and the most likely to spread the virus to vulnerable populations. (Soucheray, 3/18)

Politico: White House Deploys SWAT Teams Of Technocrats In Attempt To Fix Testing
As hospitals grapple with more coughing and feverish emergency-room visitors than they can test, the White House has deployed a SWAT team of fixers and technocrats to ramp up coronavirus testing, in an implicit acknowledgment that the Trump administration’s response has continued to fall short of what is needed. About 100 staffers and outside advisers, split between the health department and the White House, are currently working on teams to rapidly increase supplies of test kits and cope with shortages across the country, said four people with knowledge of the strategy. (Diamond, 3/16)

Politico: Surgeon General Trumpets Coronavirus Efforts But Warns ‘We Are Not An Authoritarian Nation’
Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Monday defended the administration’s more forceful federal guidance aimed at countering the coronavirus pandemic, but warned that the United States is not an “authoritarian nation” that can stamp out the public health crisis without state and local involvement. “We are not an authoritarian nation, so we have to be careful when we say, ‘Let’s do what China did. Let’s do what South Korea did,’” Adams said during an interview on “Fox & Friends,” lumping South Korea’s democratic republic together with China’s unelected communist government. (Forgey, 3/16)

ProPublica: Millions Of Federal Workers Still Waiting On Work-From-Home Order During Coronavirus Pandemic
The Trump administration has yet to issue clear guidance to federal employees nationwide on whether they can work at home as the coronavirus pandemic escalates. The result has been an ad hoc mix of policies that varies by agency and has left many workers across the country with conflicting instructions about when and how they should report to their offices and if they can telework. The civilian federal workforce consists of about 2 million people, not counting the United States Postal Service, with about 15% based in the Washington, D.C., area. (Torbati, 3/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Washington’s Streets Are Quiet As More Federal Employees Work From Home
The streets of the nation’s capital were unusually empty on Monday after the White House encouraged as many federal employees as possible to work from home in the latest step to slow the coronavirus pandemic. The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo Sunday night asking federal agencies to offer “maximum telework flexibilities.” That followed guidance on Saturday recommending only “mission-critical” travel for federal workers. (Kiernan, 3/16)

The Washington Post: On Fox News, Suddenly A Very Different Tune About The Coronavirus
For weeks, some of Fox News’s most popular hosts downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, characterizing it as a conspiracy by media organizations and Democrats to undermine President Trump. Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura In­graham accused the news media of whipping up “mass hysteria” and being “panic pushers.” Fox Business host Trish Regan called the alleged media-Democratic alliance “yet another attempt to impeach the president.” (Farhi and Ellison, 3/16)

CNN: As Coronavirus Suspends Life In America, Fox Changes Its Tone 
Last Monday, Tucker Carlson delivered a warning on his Fox News show. He said the coronavirus posed a great threat. He said it was much more severe than the flu. And he said that people have "spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem." While he delivered that monologue, his colleague Trish Regan was on Fox Business dismissing coronavirus as nothing more than an attempt to impeach Trump. (Darcy, 3/17)