The White House on Monday denied that it’s considering a national curfew in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“That’s not even in the realm of things we’re asking governors for,” said Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19.
“There are a lot of rumors,” Miller said. “I promise you, I’m sitting in every single meeting … so I can give you guys a yes or no.”
Jim Scuitto of CNN tweeted Monday morning: “There are active discussions within the Trump administration to encourage a possible ‘curfew’ across the nation in which non-essential businesses would have to close by a certain time each night.”
Miller swiftly denied the report by Scuitto, a former Obama administration political appointee. “This is not correct,” she wrote on Twitter, before briefing a group of journalists in West Wing workspaces.
Rumors of a national quarantine swirled last week, contributing to a countrywide ransacking of grocery stores by people afraid of what’s ahead. White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci said during media appearances Sunday that he’d rule out nothing to stop the virus.
But Pence appeared to pour cold water on the idea, saying at a Sunday briefing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue new guidelines Monday but that “we’ll also respect and defer to decisions that are made by governors, by state health departments about what’s best for that community.”
At the same briefing Sunday, President Trump asked Americans not to hoard groceries. “You don’t have to buy so much,” he said. “Relax. We’re doing great. It all will pass.”
But Trump’s reassurance hasn’t calmed market panic. The Dow fell nearly 2,000 points Monday morning — down nearly a third after hitting an all-time pre-crisis high last month.
Talk of a curfew could feed the panic.
The White House’s official Twitter account tweeted Monday: “Rumors of a national lockdown or national quarantine recently shared via text message are FAKE.” Press secretary Stephanie Grisham retweeted the message.
On Sunday night, the White House National Security Council wrote on Twitter: “Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown.”
“It’s fake. It’s fake. Whoever is leaking stuff — I cannot!” a senior administration official said. “We are asking [states] to give us help on where they can set up drive-through locations [for testing]” and other information-sharing, the person said.
The official said it’s “a general Republican principle that we don’t want to give a mandate to these states.”
The number of US COVID-19 cases passed 3,600 on Monday, with 61 deaths.
Last week, Trump declared a national emergency and suspended travel from Europe in response to outbreaks in several large US allied nations, including Italy, France, Germany and Spain. The 26-country Schengen zone ban is expanding to cover the UK and Ireland on Monday.
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