US coronavirus data is at odds with Trump’s push to get the economy back up and running

On Sunday evening, Fox News is hosting an “America Together: Returning to Work” virtual town hall with President Donald Trump — capping off a weekend the president spent at Camp David to reportedly convene talks about reopening the economy (and post a lot of tweets).

At the event, Trump is likely to continue working to convince Americans that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is already in the rearview mirror. He has consistently done so, recently encouraging protesters agitating against stay-at-home orders, and saying last week, “I am very much in favor of what they’re doing,” referring to governors moving to reopen businesses. He’s declared “we’re opening our country again” and proclaimed the country will be ready for any second wave of coronavirus that might arise in the fall or winter.

But the US is not even close to being through the first wave. Not a single state has met a key reopening criterion identified by the White House coronavirus task force: a steady 14-day decline in new cases.

In fact, when hardest-hit New York state is taken out of the equation, the national trajectory of new daily coronavirus cases currently shows an upward trend:

And with regard to the per-day trajectory of coronavirus-related deaths, the latest data shows that unlike almost all other comparable countries, the US death toll is plateaued at its highest point (around 2,000 deaths a day), not declining.

Trump has his reasons for wanting states to get going again. He faces a tough reelection fight and the positive economic message he planned to emphasize has, thanks to the coronavirus, turned into a dire discussion about Great Depression-level unemployment rates and historic declines in quarterly GDP. But he’s not alone in promoting plans to reopen. More than half of the states are moving forward with plans to reopen some businesses.

Even though these moves are not consistent with federal reopening guidelines, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, basically offered a verbal shrug when asked about the disconnect during an appearance on the latest Fox News Sunday.

Later in the show, Gov. Tate Reeves (R) of Mississippi — who is moving to reopen some businesses even though new coronavirus cases haven’t been steadily declining in his state — bluntly said, “We believe that that particular gating criteria just doesn’t work in states like ours.” Other red states, like Georgia, seem to be manipulating statistics to create a misleading impression of a decline in cases.

The concern is that since stringent stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines haven’t been sufficient to bring the daily number of new cases down yet, things will only get worse as economic activity, and the person-to-person proximity it requires, resumes — especially since testing capacity isn’t yet where it needs to be to trace and contain outbreaks as they occur.

Trump, however, clearly wants to turn the page from the ongoing public health crisis to a story of economic revival. The Washington Post reported Saturday the administration is planning to scale back media appearances by public health experts like Birx in favor of appearances from White House economic advisers.

“The White House apparatus is totally shifting to the economy,” an unnamed senior administration who spoke with the Post said. And that change in strategy has already been reflected on the presidential level: Hours ahead of the virtual town hall, Trump posted a tweet describing the coronavirus pandemic in biblical terms, and in the past tense.

But this, like so many aspects of Trump’s coronavirus response, is wishful thinking. The death and destruction is ongoing, and pretending that it isn’t will likely make things worse.

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