The Hill: Democratic Reps ask Trump not to issue region-specific social distancing guidelines
By J. EDWARD MORENO
More than a dozen House Democrats led by California Reps. Norma Torres and TJ Cox are calling on the Trump administration to halt its efforts to produce county-specific social distancing guidelines, citing concerns over the potential misclassification of low-income and rural communities that lack access to coronavirus tests.
Nearly two weeks ago, Trump sent a letter to U.S. governors outlining a plan to classify counties in the U.S. based on their risk factors and rescind social distancing guidelines accordingly. The president prioritized reopening the economy, which has ground to a halt as a result of social distancing measures, leaving millions unemployed.
“Our country does not presently have the testing infrastructure to accurately gauge the prevalence of COVID-19. Determining a risk classification based on insufficient testing could have a devastating impact on our national efforts to combat this disease, and in particular, on low-income and rural communities,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to the president and the public health officials in his Cabinet.
[...]
Cox said the administration cannot use “incomplete and inaccurate data in matters of life or death” and challenged the administration to “commit to, at the very least, widespread testing access, before implementing a system.”