Trump advisor Stephen Moore says 'put everybody in space outfits' to tackle virus spread when economy reopens
The Donald Trump administration never fails to surprise people with its daily announcements. Seeing the president himself locking horns with reporters and critics over handling the coronavirus crisis is a regular thing and his aides also do not stop short of producing their own startling versions.
The latest in the list is one of Trump's economic advisors who has suggested that everybody should be put in space outfits to avoid further spread of the coronavirus after the economy is reopened.
In an interview with The New York Times, Stephen Moore came up with his spacesuit idea even while acknowledging that most people do not have such outfits and they would have to be manufactured.
The US, which has over 868,000 positive cases and almost 50,000 deaths, is already struggling to make enough medical kit and equipment available to fight the pandemic.
"I was thinking this morning, and this is just kind of a thought experiment because I was thinking about this — why don't we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that? No. Seriously," Moore, a writer and TV commentator, said.
"I know we don't have space outfits — I mean, just thinking out loud, and maybe this is a crazy idea, but instead of just locking down the economy, putting everybody in a kind of — you're right," the 60-year-old added.
"You have to make 200 million of these, but it wouldn't have cost $3 trillion to do that. And you can have for months people just walking around… I mean, I was looking online, and there are all these kinds of suits that they’re building now that you’re not exposed and you’re breath — kind of ventilator."
Moore uttered a number of times during the interview that he is not a public health expert but still backed the May 1 deadline to reopen the economy, something the president has been vouching for despite experts' reluctance.
Moore mentioned him saying to the president that if the economy could be opened by May 1, a recovery could well be made by the end of summer. The US economy has been battered by the pandemic with at least 26 million jobs getting wiped out in just five weeks.
Trump recently came up with a three-phase plan to reopen the economy although the matter also snowballed into a tussle between him and the governors. He even gave a call for "liberating" some states that saw his supporters coming out of their houses in large numbers and demanding the lifting of the lockdown.
Texas recently became the first state to re-open amid the pandemic while Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee were next in line.
'Modern-day Rosa Parks'
Moore is known to make remarks that spark controversies. Recently, he called people protesting the lockdown as "modern-day Rosa Parks" and faced a backlash for comparing the legendary civil rights activist with those resenting quarantine.
Speaking to the Washington Post, the conservative commentator said: "I think there's a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded. I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties."
During a video conference chat posted online by the think tank Independence Institute, Moore mentioned Rosa Parks again to encourage lockdown protesters in Wisconsin after the Democratic governor there extended the stay-at-home restrictions till May 26.
"They're going to shut down the Capitol. Shh. Don't tell anybody," Moore said of the protesters. "This is a great time for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices," said Moore, who came close to become a presidential pick for the Federal Reserve Board in April last year.