Exactly three months since President Trump tapped Vice President Mike Pence to head the White House Coronavirus Task Force, it is shifting focus to reopening the American economy, confident it has the testing and equipment needed to handle the current crisis and the potential for a “second wave” in the fall.
Pence told Secrets, “We will be ready this fall.”
During an hourlong interview in his West Wing office, Pence pointed to documents and data showing how the Trump administration started from scratch when the outbreak occurred to its growing stockpile of equipment and medicine to further flatten the curve of infection and fight a potential fall outbreak.
“I do think we are on the far end of this epidemic. And if people will continue to practice commonsense social distancing, I think we will continue to see the downward trend,” he said.
He spoke before the task force’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said today that another outbreak is “not inevitable” if people continue to practice mitigation.
In emphasizing that the coronavirus fight was past the turning point, Pence noted that the once headline-grabbing concerns about testing deficiencies are gone. He said, for example, that when he took over the task force, states had done just 8,400 virus tests. Now, the total is 14.1 million.
He credited Trump’s push to junk the “old way” testing process for a quicker version for the surge. “President Trump reinvented testing in America,” said Pence.
And with the cooperation of industry, it should reach 40 million to 50 million tests a month by September.
“What we kind of hear regularly from governors is that the capacity of testing in many states around the country exceeds the demand,” said the vice president and former Indiana governor.
“The big evidence that we are turning a corner, starting to put the coronavirus epidemic in the past, is the percentage of those who test positive for the coronavirus. In 42 states, less than 10% are testing positive. In 20 states, it’s less than 5%,” he said.
Pence checked off the numbers of personal protective equipment produced with the help of industry. Between March 1 and Friday, he said, there have been 125 million N95 masks, 538 surgical masks, 18 million eye and face shields, 243 million medical gowns, and 12 billion gloves distributed.
Pence also said that the government and its private industry partners are on a path to top Trump’s call for 100,000 life-saving ventilators in 100 days.
“I’m just really grateful for the whole team and the way industry stepped up,” he said.
And as the effort changes course to reopening the economy, Pence promised that “there is no letup” on keeping the virus at bay. He said the administration is building up its stockpile of critical gear and ordering vaccine companies to make products if they just look promising. Because if they work, he said, the distribution could come months earlier and by winter.
“This mission is shifting because of what we’ve done as a country. Now, the mission is how do we safely reopen our country and put Americans back to work and continue to put the coronavirus in the past,” said the vice president.
