It’s being reported now that the White House will begin winding down the coronavirus task force beginning around Memorial Day, which is just a few weeks away:
MYFOX8 – The White House coronavirus task force will start to wind down later this month, a senior White House official told CNN on Tuesday.
The official said the task force “will be phased down around Memorial Day. We will continue to have key medical experts advising (President Donald Trump) daily and accessible to press throughout the coming months ahead.”
The New York Times first reported the White House’s plan to wind down the task force.
The plan to phase out the task force comes as as the country’s Covid-19 daily cases and reported deaths plateau, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center. The move would also quash the most visible nerve center for the federal government’s response to the virus.
Officials said that the task force’s end may never be officially announced and no clear replacement group appears ready to commence in its wake, the Times reported.
Fox News reports it a bit differently, noting the White House is in talks to wind down the task force and that ‘agencies’ like FEMA would take over the work of the task force:
The Trump administration is in talks over potentially winding down the coronavirus task force, even as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to grow in the U.S. and as sectors of the economy begin to reopen.
Vice President Pence, who has led the task force, said Tuesday that White House officials were “having conversations” about finishing up the group’s business and, instead, having “agencies take over the work” — specifically mentioning the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Pence said, though, that the earliest the agencies could take over the group’s responsibilities would be Memorial Day or early June, if the task force itself is discontinued.
A White House official told Fox News the White House has been shifting focus toward re-opening the country, as outlined in Phase 1 of the administration’s “Opening Up America Again” guidelines. The official said it would be an ongoing shift over the next several weeks.
Of course you know what this will mean. Trump will get a million questions from reporters about how many people he’s willing to let die if he ends the task force. It’ll be just like when Trump suggested he’d love to get the country opened back up by Easter.
In any event, I’m quite happy with this announcement and I think it’s appropriate to do wind the task force down as the pandemic is subsiding as we reopen the country.