Coronavirus: White House considers disbanding task force

The White House is considering disbanding its coronavirus task force, vice-president Mike Pence said on Tuesday, as the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approached 70,000.

Mr Pence told reporters that the task force, which is headed by top immunologists Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, could be wound down by the end of May or early June.

“We have slowed the spread, we have flattened the curve,” he said, adding that the work of the task force could be transferred to other federal agencies.

He said the decision to look at winding down the task force was “a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country”.

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The task force has been at the centre of the Trump administration’s approach to the pandemic, which has left tens of thousands of Americans dead and 30 million people without work.

The development comes as Mr Trump blocked Dr Fauci from testifying before the House of Representatives, accusing Democrats of wanting his administration to “fail” in its approach to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking as he left Washington for Arizona on Tuesday, Mr Trump said that Democrats "should be ashamed because they don't want us to succeed. They want us to fail so they can win an election, which they're not going to win."

He said the Democratic-controlled House was “a bunch of Trump-haters. They, frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death.”

Dr Fauci is expected to testify before a committee in the Republican-controlled Senate next week.

The president was speaking as a new poll found that most Americans oppose the reopening of businesses that were shut due to the pandemic, despite several states lifting lockdown measures in recent days. The University of Maryland-Washington Post poll found that 78 per cent of people said they would not dine in a restaurant, while 67 per cent would be uncomfortable shopping in a retail outlet.

Death toll

The US president has been encouraging states to reopen, even though he has said the decision rests with governors. “Exciting to see our Country starting to open up again!,” he tweeted.

Speaking before he boarded Air Force One, Mr Trump also dismissed projections by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and other government agencies that the US death toll could reach 3,000 per day by June 1st, noting that these figures did not take into account "mitigation" strategies already adopted.

Asked about the internal report which was circulated within his administration, Mr Trump replied, “Our country wants to open . . . our country has to open.

“We have the greatest country in the world. Two months ago I created, with a lot of good people . . . the greatest economy in history, the greatest employment numbers, the greatest success in history. And then one day, we had to close it down. We’re going to beat those numbers, and I’m going to beat them soon.”

Mr Trump also hit out at the founders of a new conservative committee opposed to Mr Trump’s presidency known as “The Lincoln Project”.

Trump’s failure

The group, which counts among its members prominent lawyer George Conway, husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, launched an anti-Trump TV ad titled Mourning in America, which recounts the Trump administration's failures in handling the pandemic. After attacking the group on Twitter, Mr Trump also hit out at the group as he left for Arizona.

“I would have them change the name to the ‘Losers Project’. Because if you take a look . . . every one of them, I either defeated or they lost by themselves. It’s a group of major losers. They’re Republican losers.” He also said that he thought “Kellyanne must have done a big number” on her husband, who he namechecked as a member of the group.

Mr Trump was due to meet with members of the Native American community in Arizona and tour a mask-producing facility on Tuesday in one of his first trips outside Washington since the pandemic hit.

The number of cases in the US continued to rise on Tuesday, with the death toll approaching 70,000. New York state reported 1,600 new deaths at nursing homes of people who are presumed to have died from Covid-19.