President Trump Addresses National Shutdown Possibility During Wednesday Briefing

President Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings have been jam-packed with information this week, as the full brunt of the horrid illness comes into view here in the United States.

The next two weeks will be utterly grim, according to experts.  If we’re lucky, we’ll get to the other side of this mess with only 100,000 dead – but that’s if everyone play along with the social distancing measures put in place by the CDC.

In an effort to further bolster the national response to the virus, some have floated the idea of a national shutdown.  President Trump on Wednesday indicated that this would not be his preferred route to take.

President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, states are increasingly pushing shutdown orders of their own.

Trump said Wednesday he wants to give governors’ “flexibility” on whether a stay-at-home policy is the best option for their constituents, but acknowledged that he’s looking at limiting air and rail travel between hot spots within the United States. The president remains hesitant to press a unified policy even after the White House released “sobering” new projections on Tuesday that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans will likely succumb to the coronavirus even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.

This isn’t unusual.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Wednesday the nation’s federalist system leaves much of the authority on how to properly respond to catastrophes to individual state governors and local officials.

“We trust the governors and the mayors to understand their people and understand whether or not they feel like they can trust the people in their states to make the right decisions,” Adams said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Several states and municipalities have been working ahead of the national curve in this regard, with city-wide curfews going into effect some weeks ago around the nation.