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International Desk: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration clashed with state governors Sunday over lifting coronavirus lockdowns, in a standoff embittered by his support for protests against the restrictions.<\/p>\nInternational Desk: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration clashed with state governors Sunday over lifting coronavirus lockdowns, in a standoff embittered by his support for protests against the restrictions.<\/p>\n
Vice President Mike Pence said that every US state has the ability to do enough testing to allow preliminary re-opening of the economy and a partial restart of normal life in America.<\/p>\n
But some state governors said testing capacity was far behind levels needed to avoid sparking new outbreaks of the virus.<\/p>\n
The United States has so far recorded 735,000 coronavirus cases \u2014 the highest number of any country \u2014 and registered 39,000 deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe the testing that we have today\u2026 once we activate all of the labs that can do coronavirus testing, is sufficient for any state in America to move into phase one,\u201d Pence told FOX News Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhase one\u201d ends stay-at-home restrictions for healthy people, and allows restaurants, cinemas, sporting venues, places of worships and gyms to re-open with physical distancing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have every confidence that we can have a sufficient amount of testing to be able to re-open America,\u201d Pence said, vowing to double the numbers of tests.<\/p>\n
But Virginia Governor Ralph Northam pushed back at the Republican administration\u2019s claims that there was enough testing, saying \u201cthat\u2019s just delusional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic governor of Michigan, said \u201cwe could double or even triple the number of tests that we\u2019re executing daily if we had the swabs and reagents\u201d and called for more federal government help.<\/p>\n
As the US struggles to quell the mounting death toll, political battle lines are also being drawn ahead of the November election as Trump seeks to reduce damage to his chances of holding onto office.<\/p>\n
Anti-lockdown protests have sprung up in several US cities in recent days, with support from Trump who in tweets has called to \u201cLIBERATE\u201d Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia \u2014 all states with Democratic governors \u2014 from stay-at-home orders.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur president, obviously, has been unable to deliver on tests. Now he has chosen to focus on protests,\u201d Northam told CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, also a Democrat, went further still: \u201cTo have an American president to encourage people to violate the law\u2026 it is dangerous.<\/p>\n
But even the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, said Trump\u2019s encouragement of protesters who picketed the colonial-era statehouse in Annapolis a day earlier was \u201cnot helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo encourage people to go protest the plan that you just made recommendations on, on Thursday, it just doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d Hogan told CNN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International Desk: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration clashed with state governors Sunday over lifting coronavirus lockdowns, in a standoff embittered by his support for protests against the restrictions. Vice President Mike Pence said that every US state has the ability to do enough testing to allow preliminary re-opening of the economy and a partial restart of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n