Social Distancing Guidelines Extended Until April 30

Burkes convinced the President to extend the guidelines. Thanks for joining us, Gabby, Thanks for We're all looking forward to the day when all the coronavirus pandemic madness ends and we can go back to our normal lives. I know the social distancing aspect of this has been taking a toll on a lot of people personally, and then beyond that, the economy, businesses, the economy has taken a huge hit

because of all of this. Right now and on. President Trump over the weekend and on Monday has said that his decision to prolong the coronavirus Social Distancing Guidelines was informed by his top public health officials. These recommendations should remain in place until April. Now, Gabby, what more can

you tell us about all this? The President has decided to forego his original Easter Sunday target date to sort of reopen part to the economy and relax some of the social distancing guidelines, and to instead listen to the infectious disease experts, the health officials who are currently a part of the Coronavirus Task Force, and extend the deadline until April thirty, at least for now. That could continue,

I mean after April. If we're still seeing a surge in cases of coronavirus here in the US in states that maybe haven't been as impacted yet but could be in the next few weeks, the President could certainly extend the social distancing guidelines that the federal government has been in place well into May and beyond. They now think that Easter Sunday could be the peak of the coronavirus outbreak here in the United States, So it's still a good two weeks away, you know, can see increasing cases

and more debts. This is what his health officials are telling him, right, It is what health officials are telling him, and it is one of the reasons why you're seeing a number of governors actually take additional steps over this weekend and today to sort of prepare for an onslot of cases in the next two weeks. Maryland and Virginia

are just two of them. Of course, both of these states maybor d C, an area that has been hit hard and is expected to see an influx in cases just like what we've seen in New York over the next two weeks. And so both Governor Hogan of Maryland and Governor North and Virginia instituted stay in place orders today that are expected to go into effect this evening and will hopefully send off sort of the crisis that is unfolding in New York at least to some extent.

It's not as though the Washington DC area can avoid it, but if there are things that we can do in terms of social distancing and business closures and making people stay at home, and that's certainly something that least state governors they're trying to coordinate with the administration. On President Trump, you know, he's a guy who plays everything by the gut, on his instincts, and that's gotten him into some tricky situations with aspects of the government, whether it's the intelligence

agency or whatnot. But on this right now. Early on the messaging was a little all over the place too, but right now it seems like he really is trusting his health experts, most notably Dr Anthony Faucci and Dr Deborah Burke's. Dr Fauci had said that they had some strong words with the president, like this needs to be continued,

and thankfully the president is listening at this point. And that have been a big question just over the past few days, is whether or not the president was so eager to reopen parts of the economy and to stave off a recession and significant impacts to businesses and to workers by reopening the economy and relaxing these social distancing guidelines, or if he would in fact turn to the advice of medical experts, people who are really studying the virus

and just the trends that we've seen in different parts of the world that have been affected by it so far. And I know that there was a lot of consternation inside his own presidential campaign. A lot of people were worried about this politically, you know, if the president did decide to move forward and reopen parts of the economy, and then we saw the virus start to spread even further and community transmission become more apparent in a lot

of places where it maybe didn't exist already. That could be devastating for him politically, And so I think that not only was he listening to members of the Coronavirus Task Force who were sort of advising him from a health perspective, but also close aids and people within his inner circle who were weighing in from a political standpoint as well. It is unfortunate that politics always kind of plays a place in something like this, But there are

many many angles through this. There is the health aspect, obviously, we don't want more people to get sick and die and have this thing spread. There is the economy angle. The longer that we keep things shutting down, the worst the economy suffers, the worst people individually, businesses, small business, every that's a whole trickle down thing, the worst that gets. And then there is obviously the political angle on this. The success of this whole coronavirus effort really could possibly

depend whether the President gets re elected or not. And I know that they are constantly going on through all this, and different factions within the administration or fighting for different things. So the president is in a very difficult spot on how to handle all this. He is and he's getting a lot of conflicting advice from different pockets of his administration and also from outside allies. And you just mentioned it.

But one thing that is important to note is sort of the internal tensions that we're seeing play out that we've become accustomed to just as reporters who are covering this administration, I mean, you see it all the time, where you have sort of these different wings inside the White House who are competing or who are trying to get the President to adopt their point of view, and that seems to be happening right now. Is well, there

are different parts of this administration. There's confusion over the coordination happening with private sector entities and how they're working with the government. So I do think that that is contributing somewhat to sort of the chaotic approach that we've seen, the whole of government approach that Vice President Pence has been describing, and ultimately it could really damage the president's reelection if that continues and impacts his administration's response to

the coronavirus Gabby or White House reporter at Politico. Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, so follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts