Coronavirus pandemic: Trump asks Americans to avoid groups over 10 for 15 days in new guidelines
The Trump administration issued new guidelines om March 16, asking all Americans to avoid social gatherings and groups of more than 10 people. The guidelines urge older Americans to stay home and advises people to limit gatherings to 10 or less not just in bars, and restaurants, but also at home.
"My administration is recommending that all Americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people," said President Donald Trump during a briefing on March 16.
Currently, over 4,600 cases have been reported in the US, and 85 have died.
"Avoid discretionary travel and avoid eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and public food courts. If everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus and we're going to have a big celebration altogether. With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly and a lot of progress has been made," he said.
Trump added, "It's important for the young and healthy people to understand that while they may experience milder symptoms, they can easily spread this virus and they will spread it indeed, putting countless others in harm's way. We especially worry about our senior citizens."
Currently, there are no plans on domestic travel restrictions, said the administration. "We hope we don't have to. We think that hopefully, we won't have to do that. But it's certainly something that we talk about every day. We haven't made that decision," he said.
The Trump administration is also not currently considering the type of nationwide lockdown or nationwide quarantine that has been implemented in some European countries.
"At this point, not nationwide…we may look at certain areas, certain hotspots, as they call them. We'll be looking at that, but at this moment, no, we're not," he replied to a query.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), US, said that the guidelines will be applicable for the next 15 days.
"It isn't an overreaction. It's a reaction that we feel is commensurate, which is actually going on in reality. So take a look at the guidelines, read them carefully and we hope that the people of the US will take them very seriously because they will fail if people don't adhere to them," said Dr Fauci.
Dr Deborah Burke, who is part of the US coronavirus taskforce, said if someone in the household is diagnosed with the virus, the entire household should self-quarantine in the house to prevent the spread of the virus to others.
She said that according to new information from a model, what had the biggest impact in the model was social distancing, small groups and not going in public in large groups.
"But the most important thing was if one person in the household became infected, the whole household self-quarantined for 14 days because that stops 100% of the transmission outside of the household," she said.
As far as the older generation is concerned, or those with preexisting medical conditions, Dr Burke said everyone in the household needs to focus on protecting them.
She said that if every American follows the guidelines for the next 15 days, the US will see a dramatic difference. "And we won’t have to worry about the ventilators. We won’t have to worry about the ICU beds because we won't have our elderly and our people at the greatest risk having to be hospitalized."
The guidelines come a day after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended canceling all events that consist of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks across the US.
In a deviation from his earlier stance, Trump this time did not say that the virus will disappear soon, or that it is under control. Trump also acknowledged that COVID-19 is an invisible enemy.
"We have an invisible enemy. We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about. I've read about it. I read about many years ago, 1917, 1918. I've seen all of the different problems similar to this that we've had. This is a bad one. This is a very bad one. This is bad in the sense that it's so contagious. It's just so contagious, sort of a record setting-type contagion," he said.
When asked if the new normal will continue until the height of the summer, he said it could be July, August or it could be longer than that.
"So it seems to me that if we do a really good job, we’ll not only hold the death down to a level that is much lower than the other way had we not done a good job, but people are talking about July, August, something like that. So it could be right in that period of time where I say it washes through, other people don’t like that term, but it washes through," Trump said while answering a question on when he thinks life might return to normal in the US.