Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace spoke with U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams Sunday morning about why there’s no national stay-at-home order being issued.
Calls for such an order have grown in the past week. Most states have stay-at-home orders in place, but a few have yet to implement similar orders.
Wallace showed a clip of President Donald Trump saying he “would leave it to the governors” before asking, “The Coronavirus is not a state issue, it doesn’t follow or respect state borders. Dr. Fauci says he believes there should be a national stay-at-home order. Is he wrong?”
Adams emphasized that most people across the country are following the national CDC guidelines, including in those states, before talking about how “we live in a country where we have a system of federalism.”
He pointed to different state laws with respect to opioids and tobacco, saying, “More people will die even in the worst projections from cigarette smoking in this country than are going to die from coronavirus this year.”
Adams also said some of the states not doing shelter-in-place orders are “struggling with issues concerning how they can provide for the rest of the country to be able to stay at home.”
“What I would say to those governors is if you can’t give us a month, give us what you can. Give us a week. Give us whatever you can to stay at home during this particularly tough time,” he added.
Wallace took issue with his comparison and said, “There’s a big difference between opioids and cigarettes, which are something that people decide to use or not to use, and the coronavirus, which people catch. It’s not an individual choice. And you know, when President Trump says that he is a wartime president, during World War II, FDR didn’t say, ‘Well, it’s up to each state to decide what to do,’ he mobilized the nation. Again, why not a national stay-at-home order? The coronavirus doesn’t recognize states’ rights, so does the federal analogy really work here?”
Adams said he understands that governors are “intensely protective of their right” to do what’s best for their states, before emphasizing he still wants every single state to “give us what you can” to slow the spread.
You can watch above, via Fox News Sunday.
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