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If Trump is cutting funds for coronavirus testing, he should start at the White House
Opinion byCatherine Rampell
Columnist
June 25, 2020 at 6:06 p.m. EDT
President Trump says there’s too much coronavirus testing, that testing is a “double-edged sword,” and that it makes the United States “look bad” because more testing reveals more cases.
If he really believes that, he should walk the walk and “slow down” testing exactly where it’s happening most vigorously: within the White House.
Trump has spent the past few weeks complaining about the supposedly too-high volume of testing across the country. “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” he has lamented, as if Americans are suffering not from covid-19 but from Schrödinger’s Virus.
Trump is, allegedly, a man of the people. Here is an opportunity for him to prove his populist bona fides: He can subject himself to exactly the same testing, tracing and social distancing constraints he wishes to foist upon the American people. If he truly believes that reduced testing is the best policy response, and it’s better not to know who is infected, he should reduce the testing around him and refuse to be tested himself. What’s more, he could direct everyone around him to eschew masks (some, following his selfish model, already have) and return to business as usual.
If he really believes that, he should walk the walk and “slow down” testing exactly where it’s happening most vigorously: within the White House.
Trump has spent the past few weeks complaining about the supposedly too-high volume of testing across the country. “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” he has lamented, as if Americans are suffering not from covid-19 but from Schrödinger’s Virus.
Trump is, allegedly, a man of the people. Here is an opportunity for him to prove his populist bona fides: He can subject himself to exactly the same testing, tracing and social distancing constraints he wishes to foist upon the American people. If he truly believes that reduced testing is the best policy response, and it’s better not to know who is infected, he should reduce the testing around him and refuse to be tested himself. What’s more, he could direct everyone around him to eschew masks (some, following his selfish model, already have) and return to business as usual.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-test-all-americans-like-we-test-white-house-employees/2020/06/25/71da0194-b716-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html
