The latest survey showed 52 percent of the respondents “strongly” disapproved of President Donald Trump’s tackling of the crisis, up 9 percentage points since May and 16 points since March. Meanwhile, those who approved of Trump’s response to the pandemic fell to 38 percent from 46 percent in May and 51 percent in March. Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly argued for reopening the country, even though public health experts have continuously warned against doing so prematurely. Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher and Richard Besser said public health experts had to fight the dual opponents of Covid-19 and “political leaders and others attempting to undermine” the CDC. They pointed to recent evidence proving that “repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.”

Source: Manila Times July 18, 2020 17:48 UTC