Trump projecting return of normalcy while relying on rapid COVID-19 tests which normal people lack
May 03, 2020
Washington [US], May 03 : US President Donald Trump, in recent days, has projected through events that life in the United States is returning to normalcy, however, the White House has ensured his safety with rapid coronavirus tests of all who enter the White House campus, the Washington Post reported.
At the White House, normalcy is returning -- but only because the president has adequate testing to protect him. Trump has announced that the federal government will not be extending its coronavirus social distancing guidelines once they expire on Thursday.
The officials have built a cocoon of safety around Trump that does not exist almost anywhere else in the country, the Post pointed out.
At the White House this week, President Trump sat less than six feet from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy in the Oval Office. He invited small-business owners to crowd behind the Resolute Desk for a photoshoot.
Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and their aides are tested regularly, and all who enter the White House campus are required to undergo on-site rapid tests.
"As vice president of the United States, I'm tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus," Pence told reporters, amid a public backlash after he visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and violated its rules requiring all visitors to wear a mask.
The White House is using numerous wide-scale testing kits every day, while Governors and municipal leaders have scrambled for basic supplies; so have hospitals and elderly care facilities, dealing with the most vulnerable. More than 1.1 million cases have been recorded in the US, with at least 65,000 deaths.
Even Congress is facing a dilemma with a lack of adequate testing to ensure a safe working environment as the Senate prepares to resume session on Monday
"Is that what the whole country needs to go back to work?" asked Simon Rosenberg, founder of the liberal NDN think tank. "Why does he get things we don't get? He's reinforcing a version of, 'Let them eat cake.' Trump is saying, 'I'm an uber-man. I can do whatever I want because I get testing and you little people can get the virus.' Because they have not set up the testing regime."
