The president canceled Republican National Convention events in Florida and wore a face mask in public. But it’s too late.
Five months, 4 million cases and nearly 144,000 deaths after the coronavirus was first detected on U.S. soil, President Donald Trump seems to finally be taking some of the most basic steps to show that the pandemic is serious.
He was shown wearing a mask in public. He rebooted the White House’s coronavirus briefings as a brief, more informative affair than the hour-plus rant sessions of the past. And on Thursday, he canceled the Jacksonville, Florida, portion of the Republican National Convention ― a mass public gathering exactly of the type that public officials have warned against ― saying his convention speech would happen “in a different form.”
“The timing for this event is not right,” Trump said. “To have a big convention, it’s not the right time. It’s really something that, for me, I have to protect the American people.” Continue reading.