US Medical staff wearing PPE push a stretcher with a deceased patient to a car outside of the COVID-19 intensive-care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on June 30, 2020. (Photo by Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has pointed the finger of blame at health experts in his government leading the US response to the coronavirus outbreak as the COVID-19 crisis is expanding across the country.
The US president has been increasingly critical of government health officials and their guidance as the rise in infections is threatening the reopening of economy and easing of shutdown restrictions.
Trump in particular targeted Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and shifted the blame onto him for the White Houses failure to handle the COVID-19 crisis as his popularity is plummeting in the polls ahead of the November presidential election.
He retweeted a message on Monday saying "everyone is lying," including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust," Trump retweeted the accusations of a former game show host.
The US president claimed in an interview with Fox News that Fauci "has made a lot of mistakes."
Fauci said on Monday that the surge in coronavirus cases was related to the countrys failure to shut down completely, then a rush to reopen too soon, a policy sought by Trump.
"All you needed to do was look at the films on TV of people in some states who went from shutdown to complete throwing caution to the wind - bars that were crowded, people without masks," Fauci said during a Stanford University event.
Fauci also said in a Financial Times interview last week he had not briefed Trump in two months as tensions with the president have risen.
Health officials and the CDC have pleaded with the public to wear masks to limit the spread of the virus, but the issue has become a politically divisive issue in the United States, the Reuters said.
Trump wore a mask for the first time in public in the worlds worst-hit country on Saturday. He had refused to ask Americans to wear face coverings or to wear a mask himself, saying it was a personal choice.
On Monday, the US reported 60,658 new cases and 433 coronavirus deaths.
The United States now has at least 3.38 million cases of coronavirus and 135,489 related deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories.
California rolls back reopenings amid resurgent coronavirus
California drastically dialed back its reopening plans Monday as the state reported 8,358 new daily coronavirus cases, bringing its total to nearly 330,000 including more than 7,000 deaths.
Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all shopping malls, indoor restaurants, bars, movie theaters, churches, gyms, hair salons and non-essential offices to close again.
The announcement came as education officials in Los Angeles and San Diego said the cities schools would remain closed when classes resume with online-only lessons next month.
"The sky-rocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control," the public school districts for Los Angeles and San Diego, which instruct a combined 706,000 students and employ 88,000 people, said in a joint statement.
In March, after becoming the first US state to impose a stay-at-home order, California became the nations job-loss leader. Some 2.6 million Californians lost their jobs in March and April, about equal to the combined job losses in Texas and Florida.
SOURCE: PRESS TV
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/19334
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