The Washington Post - 19.03.2020

A6 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAy, MARCH 19 , 2020

the coronavirus outbreak

BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, NICK MIROFF AND DAN LAMOTHE

President Trump invoked
rarely used wartime powers and
announced the deployment of
two naval ships Wednesday as he
tried to boost the federal re-
sponse to the coronavirus out-
break after days of bureaucratic
delays and missteps.
“We’ll be i nvoking the D efense
Production Act, just in case we
need it,” Trump said Wednesday
from the White House, referring
to a 1950 law that c ould allow t he
federal government to compel
the private sector to accelerate
the development of critical med-
ical equipment. “It can do a lot of
good things if we need it.”
Trump’s move signaled an ef-
fort to develop a more robust
federal operation to combat a
virus that has quickly spread
across the country, taking hold
in all 50 states and threatening
to crush the economy. The flurry
of announcements Wednesday
marked the most concentrated
campaign yet by the Trump ad-
ministration to slow the advance
of covid-19, t he disease caused by
the virus.
Trump, who spent weeks play-
ing down the risk posed by the
virus before recently taking a
more aggressive approach, con-
tinued his shift in tone as he
compared the government’s pos-
ture to a military operation.
“It’s a war,” Trump said of the
effort to combat the pandemic.
He likened himself to a “wartime
president.”
The Defense Department said
Wednesday it was preparing two
Navy hospital ships for deploy-
ments, including one set to go to
New York to boost the state’s
medical capacity amid fears the
virus could become overwhelm-
ing should it spread among the
millions of people who live in
and around New York City. The
Pentagon also said this week it
would be making 5 million
masks and 2,000 ventilators
available for use by health work-
ers.
The measures aim to ramp up
what state and local officials
have described as Washington’s
frustratingly slow and disjointed
early response to the epidemic,
which they have said was
plagued by inadequate testing
and a n ignorance about the p ros-
pect of widespread shortages in
medical equipment and facili-
ties.
New York Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo (D), who had criticized
the f ederal government earlier in
the week for not being more
proactive, said Wednesday he is
grateful the Trump administra-
tion is stepping up its efforts.

“The president and I agreed yesterday, look, we’re fighting the same war — and this is a war,” he said Wednesday morn- ing. “He is fully engaged on trying to help New York. He’s being very creative and very energetic, and I thank him for his partnership.” As Trump pushed early to limit the economic impact — focusing on a series of stimulus proposals and putting pressure on the Federal Reserve — critics including Cuomo said his administration was too lax in using federal powers to slow the spread of the disease at a time it might have been possible to contain it. The federal government has promised a rapid increase in available tests for the coronavirus after struggling to provide them earlier this month. Former U.S. surgeon general Vivek H. Murthy said the administration’s moves to provide more testing and medical equipment are welcome but long over- due. “People are struggling right now, they’re running out of masks and gowns and gloves, right now,” he said Wednesday on CNN. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump’s decision to invoke the Defense Production Act was necessary but not enough, tweeting “so much more is needed NOW.” “Making sure doctors and nurses have everything they need is our top priority,” he wrote. “We need masks, hospital beds, ventilators. We still need testing kits.” It remained unclear how Trump’s executive order invok- ing the Defense Production Act would be implemented. The president said on Twitter he would only be using the broad authorities granted by the act if needed in a “worst-case scenar- io.” Trump announced Wednesday that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be suspending foreclosures and evictions until the end of April, and he said he would be closing the northern border with Cana- da to all but essential travel. And the Trump administration is working with “several groups” to potentially overhaul the coronavirus testing regime by determining the feasibility of wide-scale self-swabbing, the president said. None of the moves were able to calm the turbulent financial markets. The Dow Jones indus- trial average fell another 6 percent Wednesday, shedding more than 1,300 points. The stock market’s slide during the past month has wiped out nearly all of the gains achieved since Trump was inaugurated. There are roughly 7,800 confirmed coronavirus cases throughout the country, and more than 125 people have died, numbers that have been rising

rapidly in recent days. Trump administration officials said that while the increase reflects additional testing capacity, the threat of a swiftly escalating crisis remained; the number of confirmed cases in the United States jumped more than 40 percent from Tuesday to Wednesday. Trump’s invocation of the De- fense Production Act comes days after he declared the global pandemic a national emergency, a move that freed up billions of dollars in aid to state and local governments. Many state and local officials have appealed to the federal government for help dealing with an unprecedented disruption to their medical and economic systems. Trump put the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency at its highest level of operation Wednesday, indicating that the agency will take on an increas- ingly greater role managing the nonmedical elements of the government’s disaster response. “FEMA now i s fully engaged at the highest levels,” Trump told reporters. “To day FEMA is acti- vated in every region at Level 1

... the highest level.”
The agency was preparing to
deploy more than 50 teams
across the country to support
jurisdictions struggling to cope
with the coronavirus shutdowns
and disruptions, FEMA spokes-
person Lizzie Litzow said.
The four-person teams “will
be there to support states as they
activate their emergency opera-
tions centers,” Litzow said.
The Trump administration to
date has used FEMA mostly in a
secondary role, with the Depart-
ment of Health and Human
Services and the Centers for
Disease Control taking the lead

among federal agencies. “This starts to shift the opera- tional center of gravity from HHS to FEMA,” said Dan Kaniewski, who s tepped down in January as the agency’s second- in-command. The White House Ta sk Force will continue to run the government response, but FEMA is the best qualified to coordinate among federal agencies, deploy resources and respond to state requests for assistance, while allowing HHS and the CDC to continue to take the lead on the medical emergency response, Kaniewski added. “FEMA is the quarterback for the federal response to disas- ters,” he said. “This is a disaster, and it needs to be coordinated.” FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor briefed the White House coronavirus task force about the agency’s assets and resources for the first time Wednesday, Litzow said. The agency does not have stockpiles of materials or medical supplies on hand, but its incident managers are tasked with assisting states and locali- ties with the procurement pro- cess and by providing financial resources. The agency’s 10 regional coor- dinating offices a re working with state governments, and the emergency teams will support them, Litzow said. “Our regional administrators are in touch with all the governors and in touch with the White House Ta sk Force,” she said. “This is the whole-of-government response.” Trump plans to visit FEMA’s emergency operations center in Washington on Thursday, according to an administration official who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity to preview the president’s schedule. FEMA has broad authority to coordinate among federal agencies in response to a natural disaster. Officials at the agency will continue to play a “supporting role” to federal authorities because the coronavirus is a public health pandemic, rather than a natural disaster such as a hurricane or flood. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency last week al- lowed state and local officials to request direct federal assistance to respond to the pandemic, opening up more than $40 bil- lion in disaster relief aid. The requests have poured in. Florida asked for 2 million face masks, 500,000 gloves and 5,000 ventilators, among other items. State officials also con- tacted the Trump a dministration about the potential for deploying naval ships i nto Florida’s ports to provide additional medical capacity. In New York, which is now home to the largest number of confirmed cases, Cuomo has warned that his state could run out of capacity to treat patients. He said the naval ship Trump promised to send, the USNS Comfort, would be “a floating hospital” docked in New York’s harbor. The Comfort and its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, each have about 1,000 beds — the size of a large hospital. They each would be able to offer support in one location, but it is unclear when they would be available. The Comfort, based in Nor- folk, is undergoing m aintenance, according to Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, and could take several weeks to arrive in New

York. The Mercy is based in San Diego, and Trump said Wednes- day that the administration hasn’t “made the final determi- nation a s to where i t’s going to go on the West Coast.” Trump misspoke at one point and said the Comfort is in San Diego and suggested the ships “can be launched over the next week or so, depending on need.” Defense officials have said re- peatedly that it can take longer than that t o assemble the needed medical personnel to staff the ships. On Tuesday, Esper said he was concerned that calling upon reserve service members who already are working in other medical facilities as civilians could be counterproductive. “We’ve got to be very con- scious of and careful of as we call up these units and use them to support the states, that we aren’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak,” Esper said. In a statement released after Trump’s announcement, the Navy said the ships are preparing to deploy “if called upon.” Both of them are undergoing scheduled maintenance and are staffing up to deploy as “soon as possible,” the statement said. As Esper suggested Tuesday, the hospital ships will not be deployed to treat patients with the coronavirus, the Navy said. That’s a reflection of the ship’s design, which has an open floor plan and is focused on treating trauma patients. The White House has outlined a number of other steps aimed at combating the coronavirus, including seeking to speed up the production of a vaccine and issuing national guidelines to encourage “social distancing.” On Wednesday, the administration unveiled a series of new public service announcements aimed at amplifying its public health message. The Trump administration has said it would expand Medi- care coverage of telehealth services to allow seniors to see their doctors without having to leave home, and Vice President Pence said HHS would issue new regu- lations allowing doctors to prac- tice across state lines. Trump touted those moves as he sought to defend his response to the outbreak. He also empha- sized his country-specific label for the pandemic, insisting that it was not racist. “ I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘bor- ders’ from China — against the wishes of almost all,” the president wrote on Twitter, complain- ing about media coverage of his handling of the crisis. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Laurie Mcginley, Lisa rein and seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Trump invokes wartime powers to bolster U.S. response

JABIn Botsford/tHe WAsHIngton Post President Trump announced that he deployed two naval ships to boost medical capacity, including one to be used in New York. “It’s a war,” he said Wednesday of the effort to combat the coronavirus.

Defense Production Act could speed medical gear; naval ships readied

BY LISA REIN, KIMBERLY KINDY AND ERIC YODER

The White House, after weeks
of reluctance to disrupt the gears
of government, has now i nstruct-
ed federal agencies to adjust
their operations to focus on
“ mission-critical” services to
contain the coronavirus by limit-
ing face-to-face interactions.
In a memo late Tuesday, acting
budget director Russell Vought
told department heads that they
should “postpone or significantly
curtail” operations that cannot
be carried out through telework
or that require in-person interac-
tion with the public.
“Government must immedi-
ately adjust operations and ser-
vices to minimize face-to-face
interactions, especially at those
offices or sites where people may
be gathering in close proximity
or where h ighly v ulnerable popu-
lations obtain services,” Vought
wrote.
He urged agencies to quickly
communicate to the public any
non-essential services they de-
cide to cut — and postpone
“non-mission critical functions”
to limit the virus’s spread. He
acknowledged that exceptions
would be necessary for opera-
tions that protect public health

and safety, including those in l aw enforcement and criminal jus- tice roles. The memo was the strongest direction yet to federal leaders to put themselves on an emergency footing to fight the coronavirus. But it did not order agencies to trigger what are k nown as “conti- nuity of operations” plans, the most extreme emergency plan- ning tool at their disposal to scale back to essential services. Under those plans, as many employees as possible would work from home, but government services would be substan- tially pared down, similar to a shutdown. Thousands of employees would not be working, emergency management experts said, although they would be paid. The White House has told agencies to prepare for this sce- nario. Still, “this is an indication that the administration understands it’s not going to be business as usual going f orward,” s aid Daniel Kaniewski, who served until Feb- ruary as the Trump administration’s second-in-command at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and is now a managing director at Marsh & McLennan Companies, a risk management and consulting firm. “Right now agencies have the luxury of having all their staff available, but this could change if the situation worsens,” Kaniews- ki said. It was unclear how quickly and to what degree agencies would curtail services in response. The U.S. Census Bureau

announced Wednesday that it was suspending all field operations for two weeks until April 1. During this pause, the bureau said, it will continue to evaluate all 2020 Census operations. The bureau urged the public to respond to the census question- naire online. The Food and Drug Adminis- tration postponed routine inspections of food and drugs in its domestic surveillance facilities. The agency took the actions for “the health and well-being of our staff and those who conduct inspections for the agency under contract at the state level, and because of industry concerns about visitors,” the FDA said in a statement. On Tuesday, the Internal Reve- nue Service and the Social Secu-

rity Administration began closing field offices across the country and restricting the face-to- face services they offer to limit contract with customers. Vought demanded an “aggressive posture” from government leaders in his memo, which re- flected a more intense focus on working from home for those employees whose jobs allow it. He ordered agencies to “maxi- mize” remote work for employees and thousands of federal contractors who function side by side with civil servants. The White House has come under criticism for failing to aggres- sively p ush telework a fter private companies weeks ago sent their employees home to work. As of Wednesday, some agencies were resisting efforts to

curtail face-to-face contact be- tween employees and the public. Administrative law judges who preside over Social Security Administration (SSA) disability hearings have for weeks asked their agency to allow them to direct those who come before them — often the elderly and people with health problems — to handle hearings by phone if anyone arrives sick at the hear- ing rooms. They were denied this request. Following Vought’s directive and President Trump’s call to limit gatherings to no more than 10 people, the judges asked governors to intervene and expand- ed their request to a postpone- ment of all in-person hearings. “By being required to report to work in person, we are at risk of spreading the virus to others, including our neighbors and loved ones,” said Judge Melissa McIntosh, union president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges. “Our country has shut down offices, sporting events, in-dining r estaurants and shopping.... We are asking each governor in every state to intervene and demand the SSA fully comply with federal and state guidance.” Some employees from agencies across the government, as well as contractors they work with, were c alling their represen- tatives in Congress to say they were still being ordered to come into the office. “It’s a huge contradiction for the president to say people should not gather in groups

larger than 10 people when his administration is failing to provide similar guidance to the men and women who serve the public in federal service,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district in- cludes t ens o f thousands of federal employees and contractors. House and Senate Democrats in recent days have urged the president to issue an executive order calling for mandatory telework for the w orkforce t o protect them and the public from possible infection. Late Tuesday, 62 House Demo- crats led by Connolly followed similar action in the Senate, signing a letter to Trump de- manding an “immediate telework mandate” to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. “We are concerned... by re- ports from constituents that some federal supervisors continue to deny telework requests from federal employees and federal contractors who have the capacity to telework and can do so while supporting agency m ission-critical functions,” said the letter. Vought’s m emo a lso instructed agencies to restrict anyone in- fected by covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, and those at higher risk of contract- ing it, from federal buildings. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Michael e. ruane contributed to this report.

White House instructs agencies to pare down to ‘mission-critical’ services

JABIn Botsford/tHe WAsHIngton Post Reporters and staffers undergo medical screening ahead of a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House on Tuesday.

Leaders told to restrict face-to-face interactions among e mployees, public

The Washington Post - 19.03.2020

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