Trump floats quarantine of New York City, backs off after Gov. Cuomo calls it ‘federal declaration of war’ – By Todd J. Gillman and Tom Benning (Dallas Morning News) / March 28 2020
Dramatic step would restrict movement by at least 10 million people who live in and near top U.S. COVID-19 hot spot.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump floated the possibility of an “enforceable quarantine” for New York City and surrounding areas on Saturday, backing off hours later after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the idea implausible and a “federal declaration of war.”
“This would be an enforceable quarantine. And, you know, I’d rather not do it, but we may need it,” Trump said Saturday morning. Cuomo immediate rejected the idea and by afternoon, warned that such a lock down of the nation’s largest city, site of half the U.S. COVID-19 cases, would create “chaos and mayhem.”
“I don’t think it is plausible. I don’t think it is legal,” he said on CNN.
A few hours later, Trump announced that after consulting with his coronavirus task force, the Centers for Disease Control “issue a strong Travel Advisory…A quarantine will not be necessary.”
The CDC’s advisory, issued Saturday night, “urges residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.”
Many states, counties and cities have issued stay-at-home orders but an order on the scale Trump suggested would be far more sweeping than any step yet taken in the United States to slow the contagion. In China, a two-month lockdown in Wuhan, where the new coronavirus emerged, began easing only on Saturday.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on Thursday requiring a 14-day self-quarantine for anyone flying into the state from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans.
Continue to article: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/03/28/trump-says-he-may-impose-2-week-quarantine-on-new-york-city-and-nearby-areas-to-slow-spread-of-covid-19/
