By Michael Hernandez
NEWS FLASH—The Dow Jones reports a historic jump of 2,113 points today (an 11 percent gain)—the highest ever recorded by the Stock Exchange.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Donald J. Trump reinforced his call for the economy to be open by Easter at Tuesday’s White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing following an earlier morning Fox News Channel virtual town hall.
America is “not built to shut down,” said President Trump at the Fox News Channel virtual town hall. “Our people are full of vim and vigor and energy. They don’t want to be locked in a house or an apartment or some space. We have to go back to work.”
President Trump said that the coronavirus emergency relief bill in Congress will allow America to help great companies like Boeing, the airlines, and the cruise lines.
Others who shared at Tuesday’s White House briefing included:
- Larry Kudlow (National Economic Council Director): The third coronavirus emergency relief package before Congress now is the “largest main street assistance program in the history of the United States” and has four phases: immediate family assistance; sick leave; a package for small business with loan incentives; and then full wages. This package has “worker retention that maintains payrolls during the crisis time with families of four receiving checks of $3,000.” Kudlow said the overall assistance package was six trillion dollars with two trillion dollars in direct assistance and four trillion dollars in lending.
- Vice President Mike Pence: “People across America—small business and large business are responding. People are acting to the President’s ‘15 days to slow the spread’ and this is significantly reducing coronavirus cases. If you don’t have symptoms, don’t get tested so that people who have symptoms have the ability to get tested. We are particularly focused on New York which has 60 percent of the new cases which is now 1 out of 1,000 individuals compared to .1 out of 1,000 in other places. Make sure you follow the guidelines and avoid nonessential travel. If you have traveled from New York City, we ask you to self-isolate for 14 days. For the people of New York City, we are with you. Private companies like 3M, Ford and McDonald’s are stepping up to help. Just today, Apple is donating nine million N-95 masks. This level of generosity is inspiring.”
- Deborah Birx (White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator): “We have accelerated the level of testing these last eight days. Some 370,000 individuals have tested—most over the last eight days. You will soon be able to take your own sample. We won’t be able to see true data results until we have no backlog in testing; when our labs are working within a 24-hour cycle. New York City remains the hotspot of the nation.”
- Anthony Fauci (National Institute of Health): “New York has suffered terribly through no fault of their own. New York has eight to ten times the cases of other areas. They can’t become a seeding point for other areas around the country. We have randomized clinical trials of drugs (for the coronavirus) in the pipeline. We have design studies to see if they are safe and effective.”
(Editor’s Note: America is now on it’s ninth day of “15 Days to Slow The Spread” Campaign while California and Ventura County have been under “Stay Well at Home” emergency orders since Thursday, March 19th. The county and state order remains in effect until at least Monday, April 20th.)
Michael Hernandez, Co-Founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service; editor of the History Makers Report and founder of History Makers International—a community nonprofit serving youth and families in Ventura County, is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. He worked 25 years as a middle school teacher in Monrovia and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted by email at [email protected].
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