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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 28, 2020)
A3 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2020 White House releases new testing guidelines Colorado, Nevada join Western States Pact By ZEKE MILLER, JILL COLVIN and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press WASHINGTON — The White House released new guidelines Monday on coro- navirus testing and reopening businesses as President Donald Trump sought to regain his footing after weeks of criticism and detours created in part by his sideshows. As part of the guidelines effort, the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Prevention released new priorities for virus testing, including people who show no symptoms but are in high-risk settings. The White House unveiled what it described as a comprehensive overview of its efforts to make enough tests for COVID- 19 available so states can sample at least 2.6% of their populations each month. Areas that have been harder hit by the virus would be able to test at double that rate, or higher, the White House said. Trump and adminis- tration medical experts outlined the plan on a call with governors Monday afternoon, and Trump announced that businesses such as CVS would expand access to tests across the country. “Testing is not going to be a problem at all,” Trump said later in the Rose Garden. Many of the administration’s past pledges and goals on testing have not been met. Monday’s developments were meant to fi ll critical gaps in White House plans to begin “reopening” the nation, ramping up testing for the virus while shifting the pres- ident’s focus toward recovery from the eco- nomic collapse caused by the outbreak. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced they will join the Western States Pact of Oregon, Wash- ington state and California in coordinating on issues for reopening society amid the coronavirus. The group of states don’t have specifi c plans on how to scale back stay-at-home orders or reopen businesses. Instead, they said they would coordinate those decisions while fi rst considering the health of residents. Polis and Sisolak emphasized the shar- ing of data and best practices among the Western states for modifying stay-at-home and other protective measures to combat the pandemic. Sisolak called the partnership vital for Nevada’s recovery because of the millions of people from the West who vacation and travel to his state. In Washington state, the Depart- Alex Brandon/AP Photo President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence walk from the Oval Offi ce to speak about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday. ment of Fish and Wildlife and Washing- ton State Parks and Recreation Commis- sion announced Monday they will reopen state-managed lands on May 5 for local day- use only recreation. Days after he set off a fi restorm by pub- licly musing that scientists should explore the injection of toxic disinfectants as a potential virus cure, Trump said he found little use for his daily task force briefi ngs, where he has time and again clashed with medical experts and reporters. Trump’s aides had been trying to move the president onto more familiar and, they hope, safer, ground: Talking up the economy in more tightly con- trolled settings. On the conference call with governors, Trump suggested that many states should consider reopening schools before the end of the academic year, easing the way for par- ents to go back to work. “Some of you might start thinking about school openings because a lot of people are wanting to have the school openings,” Trump told the governors. The Associated Press obtained an audio recording of the call. Among Monday’s announcements was a new “testing blueprint” for states. It includes a focus on surveillance testing as well as “rapid response” programs to isolate those who test positive and identify those with whom they came in contact. The adminis- tration aims to have the market “fl ooded” with tests for the fall, when COVID-19 is expected to recur alongside the seasonal fl u. Jeremy Konyndyk, a disaster prepared- ness expert who helped lead the Obama administration response to Ebola, said the Trump administration’s testing plans are well short of what is needed. Researchers at Harvard have estimated the country needs to be testing a minimum of 500,000 people per day, and possibly many more. Konyndyk said we should be aiming to be doing 2 million to 3 million tests per day. “Over the past month, we’ve doubled or if you want to be really generous tripled the testing capacity in this country. We need to take where we are now and expand it ten- fold,” Konyndyk said. The White House argues that the limit- ing factor for the nation’s COVID-19 test- ing is no longer the test kits or the chemicals and supplies needed to conduct the tests but rather the availability of resulting samples — either because guidelines on who could be tested are too stringent or because there are not enough health workers able to take nasal swabs. The CDC also has been working on more detailed guidelines on reopening schools, restaurants and other establishments. Draft guidelines sent by the CDC to Washington include a long list of recommendations for organizations as they begin to reopen, such closing break rooms at offi ces, schools spac- ing desks six feet apart and restaurants using disposable plates and menus. The draft guid- ance was obtained by The Associated Press from a federal offi cial who was not autho- rized to release it. Some states have started to ease clo- sure orders, and Trump is expected to spend coming days highlighting his administra- tion’s efforts to help businesses and employ- ees. Aides said the president would hold more frequent roundtables with CEOs, busi- ness owners and benefi ciaries of the trillions of dollars in federal aid already approved by Congress, and begin to outline what he hopes to see in a future recovery package. Trump last left the White House complex a month ago, and plans are being drawn up for a limited schedule of travel within the next few weeks, aides said. It would be a symbolic show that the nation is beginning to reopen. The shift comes in conjunction with what the White House sees as encouraging signs across the country, with the pace of new infections stabilizing and deaths declining. Still, medical experts warn that the virus will continue to haunt the country at least until a vaccine is developed. And they say the risk of a severe second wave is high if social distancing measures are relaxed too quickly or if testing and contact tracing schemes aren’t developed before people return to normal behaviors. Worries are growing among Republi- cans and Trump allies over the president’s increasingly erratic handling of the corona- virus crisis. For weeks, Republicans have grown concerned that Trump’s daily briefi ngs were doing him grievous political damage. Though Trump cherished the TV ratings, the modest polling bump he received in the early days of the pandemic has vanished amid a fl urry of misstatements and partisan fi ghts. Associated Press writers Michelle Smith, Mike Stobbe, Darlene Superville and Alan Suderman contributed to this report.
