President Trump acknowledged Thursday that there could be a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic later this year, but flatly stated he wouldn’t let any further outbreaks shutter the economy again.
“People say that’s a very distinct possibility,” Trump said when asked a possible second wave while in Michigan. “It’s standard. And, we’re going put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country.”
Trump’s comments came as he was touring a Ford Motor Co. plant outside of Detroit that has converted its automobile manufacturing facility into one making ventilators. During a speech at the plant, the president praised Ford workers for their efforts to produce thousands of ventilators during the pandemic.
“The global pandemic proves once and for all that for America to be a strong nation, America needs to be a manufacturing nation,” Trump said. “I’m fighting to bring back our jobs from China and many other countries.”
Conservative radio host Buck Sexton said Trump had told this to him during a White House interview Wednesday, saying, “We will not do a lockdown for the second wave that is likely to come in the winter.”
During his speech, the president also lashed out at China for its role in the coronavirus pandemic.
“It came in from China and it should have been stopped in China,” he said.
The first reports of the contagion surfaced late last year in Wuhan, the sprawling capital of Central China’s Hubei province, and the disease quickly spread across the globe. As of Thursday, over 5 million people have been infected worldwide with over 329,000 deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. – READ MORE
