Trump shifted on COVID-19 after seeing New York morgue trucks on cable news, listening to Dr. Fauci


President Trump met Sunday with his top coronavirus medical advisers, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, and agreed to extend his administration's national guidelines on maintaining social distancing to April 30, not Trump's preferred date of April 12. Fauci and Birx showed Trump charts forecasting about two million Americans dying without social distancing versus 100,000 to 240,000 if the measures were kept in place. Trump announced the April 30 date that evening, and his daily briefings since have reflected these somber projections, culminating in Tuesday evening's stark, thematically consistent press conference.
"We made it very clear to him that if we pulled back on what we were doing and didn't extend them, there would be more avoidable suffering and avoidable death," Fauci told CNN on Monday. "It was a pretty clear decision on his part."
"Ultimately, Mr. Trump was convinced by the numbers and reports about refrigerator trucks being used to hold the bodies of people who have died of the virus at Elmhurst Hospital in New York City," The Wall Street Journal reports, citing Trump aides. Trump's economic advisers had also come to see a continued lockdown as doable, "and recent polling showed many Americans rejecting the idea that stay-at-home guidelines should be lifted quickly."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In fact, Trump had already made up his mind to drop the Easter date by Sunday's meeting with Fauci and Birx, Jonathan Swan reports at Axios. "Scenes out of New York, including bleak hospital images played on Fox News, struck a nerve" with Trump, and while Fauci and Birx's "stats left a dramatic impression on Trump," the "New York scenes on TV had personalized the situation" and "it was a very short meeting." Trump repeatedly pointed to the makeshift morgue trucks at Elmhurst Hospital, in his native Queens, at Tuesday's briefing.
There are risks in challenging Trump with epidemiological data, but Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, "has forged an unusual, and at times seemingly precarious, relationship" with the president, and he "has so far retained his leverage with Mr. Trump in an administration where critics of the president rarely last long," the Journal reports. Read more about Fauci's magic formula at The Wall Street Journal.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Ukraine-Russia: is peace deal possible after Easter truce?
Today's Big Question 'Decisive week' will tell if Putin's surprise move was cynical PR stunt or genuine step towards ending war
By The Week UK
-
The bougie foods causing international shortages
In the Spotlight Pistachios join avocados and matcha on list of social media-driven crazes that put strain on supply chains and environment
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
-
Strep infections are rising in the US
Under the radar The cases have more than doubled in 10 years
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
RFK Jr. visits Texas as 2nd child dies from measles
Speed Read An outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease continues to grow following a decade of no recorded US measles deaths
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Shingles vaccine cuts dementia risk, study finds
Speed Read Getting vaccinated appears to significantly reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Measles outbreak spreads, as does RFK Jr.'s influence
Speed Read The outbreak centered in Texas has grown to at least three states and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promoting unproven treatments
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
RFK Jr. offers alternative remedies as measles spreads
Speed Read Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes unsupported claims about containing the spread as vaccine skepticism grows
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Texas outbreak brings 1st US measles death since 2015
Speed read The outbreak is concentrated in a 'close-knit, undervaccinated' Mennonite community in rural Gaines County
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US
-
Mystery illness spreading in Congo rapidly kills dozens
Speed Read The World Health Organization said 53 people have died in an outbreak that originated in a village where three children ate a bat carcass
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Ozempic can curb alcohol cravings, study finds
Speed read Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may also be helpful in limiting alcohol consumption
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
New form of H5N1 bird flu found in US dairy cows
Speed Read This new form of bird flu is different from the version that spread through herds in the last year
By Peter Weber, The Week US