President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Tuesday the goal is to open large sections of the country and ease the guidelines implemented for the COVID-19 pandemic by Easter.
“I said earlier [Tuesday] that I hope we can do this by Easter,” Trump said. “I think that would be a great thing for our country, and we’re all working very hard to make that a reality. We’ll be meeting with a lot of people to see if it can be done.”
Andrew Smith, a UTRGV Political Science lecturer, said anything Trump declares would only affect federal operations.
“The states would have to make their own decisions ’cause that’s the federalist system we have and by extension, local governments would have to make their own decisions,” Smith said. “So, Trump could say, for example, ‘Everybody, you know, go take that cruise by that house.’
That doesn’t mean that’s what Cameron County or Hidalgo County will follow, he said.
“They may still say, ‘Ah, yeah, no, we’re just going to keep our orders in place,’” Smith said.
The decision to open large sections of the country will be based on facts and data, according to Trump.
“I’m also hopeful to have Americans working again by that Easter,” Trump said. “But rest assured, every decision we make is grounded solely on the health, safety and well-being of our citizens.”
Smith said if Trump declares an end to the COVID-19 crisis, there might be more political pressure on city and county officials to resume business as usual.
“The other thing that might happen is that any willingness of the federal government to provide more resources to combat this crisis … those might dry up,” he said. “I mean, think about how long the Rio Grande Valley, it took them to get a lot of testing kits, like enough to set up a drive-thru.”
Smith said if the president is correct about the crisis being over, it may not be the worst thing. But if he is wrong and according to epidemiologists, the crisis is nowhere near over.
Encouraging people to resume their normal lives may possibly have deadly consequences such as people dying from the coronavirus.
In other coronavirus news, as reported Monday by The Rider, Hidalgo County issued a stay-at-home curfew for residents from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. effective last Sunday.
Cameron County has issued a countywide emergency management order to shelter in place that began Wednesday and will last until April 8, as reported Monday by The Rider.
Asked for his thoughts on how national, state and local elected leaders are handling the COVID-19 pandemic, Charles Olney, a UTRGV Political Science assistant professor, replied, “So, it’s a pretty fast-moving situation. So how handling today may be different than it was just a couple of days ago and how it might be in a few days. The broad trend has been to really aggressively encourage or mandate that people stay home and businesses shut down and just, sort of, a whole package of efforts to try and create a situation that will convince people to, you know, stay away from groups and crowds and public spaces.”
Smith explained how presidential candidate hopefuls, such as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, are positioning themselves to show how the current president is handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think what they’re doing is trying to illustrate that the federal government is not doing its job the way that perhaps it should, regardless of how true that statement is,” Smith said. “The feds aren’t doing the job right and you need somebody in office that can do it. I think that’s really what the candidates are doing and it’s a smart electoral strategy, particularly if the coronavirus pandemic does go on for a while.”
He said Trump’s response to the pandemic may become an issue in November.
“So, if you’re a Democrat, even if you’re a Republican, frankly, this is a golden opportunity, as tragic as it may be, to illustrate why you be would a better leader in this time of crisis than perhaps the sitting president,” Smith said.
In an effort to control the spread of COVID-19, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last Friday during a press briefing that “the United States and Mexico have agreed to restrict non-essential travel across our shared border.” The agreement took effect last Saturday and will be reviewed after 30 days.
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf explained the accord does not apply to individuals traveling for medical purposes, attending educational institutions, for emergency response, public health services and individuals engaged in lawful, cross-border trades.
“It seems like there’s gonna be, more or less, an effective shutdown of the border,” Olney said. “Both Mexico and the U.S. recognize that they want to limit travel and transportation as much as possible. Obviously, the Trump administration has really wanted to pursue an aggressive border restriction policy, anyways. But even those folks who generally would not be supportive of that kind of thing would say, in this particular moment, it probably does make sense. So that’s not a complete and total shutdown of the border.”
Asked what message he has for the national, state and local leaders, Olney replied, “I think the biggest message is, this is a really quickly moving process and we don’t really know what is going to be the right approach. So, we have to, sort of, remain open. The leaders really need to consistently be checking back with the people who are studying the health effects, the economic effects and really recognize that this is not a minor disruption that we’re facing. This is a really, really significant, you know, it’s one of the biggest external shocks that has really ever hit the U.S. political-economic system. And the solutions need to be commensurate with how big of a crisis it is.”
