Trump, sinking in polls, shifts tone on coronavirus
WASHINGTON, United States — Reeling from polls predicting defeat in November's election, President Donald Trump struck a newly serious tone on the coronavirus crisis Tuesday, acknowledging that a disease he has frequently played down would "get worse."
"Some areas of our country are doing very well," Trump said at his first formal White House briefing on the pandemic in almost three months.
"Others are doing less well," the president said. "It will probably, unfortunately get worse before it gets better."
The return to presidential coronavirus briefings -- abandoned in late April after Trump drew ridicule for musing on the potential for injecting coronavirus patients with household disinfectant -- was part of a concerted bid to take back control of the message.
After an erratic national response, some 140,000 deaths, and now dramatic surges in new cases across the south and south-west, polls show two thirds of Americans mistrusting Trump's leadership on the issue.
Polls also show his response to the pandemic driving voters strongly in the direction of opponent Joe Biden in the presidential election, due in just over 100 days.
While Trump makes his latest pivot, Congress is starting to negotiate another large-scale economic relief bill to try and prop up an economy devastated by mass unemployment and shuttered businesses.
An agreement appears some way off, but in Europe, EU leaders emerged from a marathon four-day and four-night summit on Tuesday to celebrate what they boasted was their own historic rescue plan.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel the 750-billion-euro ($858-billion) deal was equal to "the greatest crisis" in EU history. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed "a Marshall Plan for Europe" that would boost his country's economy by 140 billion euros over the next six years.
No Dr Fauci
Having long played down the seriousness of the disease and repeatedly promoted pet medical theories on how it might be combatted, Trump hopes that his more somber, realistic approach will change the dire headlines.
Despite refusing for months to be photographed wearing a mask, he now urged Americans to follow doctors' recommendations in using face coverings as a vital barrier to the virus' spread.
"We are asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask," he said.
And he touted good news on vaccine development which he said would be completed "a lot sooner than anyone thought possible."
But Trump repeated his frequent assertion that the virus will somehow "disappear."
He also raised eyebrows by coming to the podium alone, rather than with medical leaders. His top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, who has been attacked by Trump's team for his often less than upbeat prognosis, was not even invited.
Primetime
Trump, a lifetime salesman and a veteran of reality television, often appears more comfortable in front of the cameras than in the more formal settings of traditional presidential life. Although he constantly complains about unfair press coverage, he gives more press conferences and jousts with journalists more often than probably any other Oval Office occupant.
He said he will continue the early evening primetime television briefings, although possibly not every day.
Tuesday's version was succinct at less than half an hour and he mostly kept to the White House talking points. But it is unknown whether Trump will resist using the platform in the future to return to his more usual divisive rhetoric.
He trails Biden in all polls and is retooling his campaign to an ever-darker message in which he tries to paint the Democrat as backed by anarchists and Venezuelan-style socialists.
Trump's Twitter feed Tuesday gave an indication of his divided attention.
On one hand there was the upbeat tweet: "Tremendous progress being made on Vaccines and Therapeutics!!!"
And on the other, the evidence-free, alarming claim -- shocking for a sitting president -- that the election in which he is forecast to lose will be rigged.
"Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation's History! #RIGGEDELECTION."
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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