WASHINGTON – Facing mounting public anxiety over the Covid-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump on Friday (March 13) upped the ante against the novel coronavirus, imposing a national State of Emergency which would unleash up to US$50 billion (S$70 billion) of Federal money, he said.

Every state is to set up emergency centres to be active immediately and every hospital should activate its emergency plans, Mr Trump said at Friday afternoon press conference at the White House.

“The next eight weeks are critical” he said. “We will remove or eliminate any obstacle to deliver our people the care they need.”

And he mentioned a “partnership with the private sector to vastly increase tests” for the novel coronavirus to 1.4 million next week.

Drive-through tests would be available in critical locations, he said. Several retail giants will make their parking lots available, Vice-President Mike Pence said.

“Declaring a State of Emergency allows Federal agencies to do things that they couldn’t do at least not as swiftly and easily without that declaration,” Tara O’Toole, executive vice-president, In-Q-Tel, and a former undersecretary of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, told The Straits Times.

“It opens up avenues for Fema (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to act to move stuff and people and money around… so it essentially is a governmental device that unleashes different capacities in government. It basically says go now, go faster,” she said.

As of Friday afternoon, reports said the number of recorded infections in the US had reached 1,920 and there had been 41 deaths. 

The US’ focus is to flatten the growth trajectory of Covid-19 infections, which as of Thursday was similar to its growth in Italy and South Korea.

Without avoidance measures, cases will spike, overwhelming the US’s health-care system. With measures, the growth curve will be flatter, meaning cases will be more spread over time and not flood the health-care system at any given point.

The United States’ response is hampered by a lack of data – due in large part to inadequate levels of testing which the Administration this week belatedly tried to ramp up, however with little sign of immediate improvement.

Health-care workers are also short of personal protection equipment (PPE) which they need when dealing with known or potential Covid-19 patients – putting them in danger.

Staff at some hospitals are, in a desperate measure, sharing, or washing and reusing masks. The Straits Times understands from sources that at least one ICU doctor in Washington State – the hardest hit  – is in an ICU himself after being infected. 

Mark Smolinski, president, Ending Pandemics and former director, Predict and Prevent Initiative at Google.org, told journalists in a conference call organised by the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday: “We are still in active containment mode. Mitigation measures can be part of containment mode.

“We need to contain every spark that’s happening from becoming the fires we see in South Korea, in Italy, and we know we will have one or more in the US – so every community has to take this absolutely seriously.”

On Wednesday, President Trump banned non-US residents from entering the country from Europe — except Ireland and the UK.

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