Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has slammed President Trump’s promise to restart the economy by easter, warning that there will be “at least” two more months of lockdown, maybe even longer.
During his Tuesday press briefing, the Democrat Mayor said that the Department of Water and Power will be shutting off services for businesses that refuse to comply with the “safer at home” ordinance.
He then declared that his city will be on lockdown until May at the very earliest.
Garcetti made these remarks to Business Insider after 12 deaths were confirmed in Los Angeles due to Coronavirus.
Per Business Insider:
Los Angeles residents will be confined to their homes until May at the earliest, Mayor Eric Garcetti told Insider on Wednesday.
“I think this is at least two months,” he said. “And be prepared for longer.”
In an interview with Insider, Garcetti pushed back against “premature optimism” in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying leaders who suggest we are on the verge of business as usual are putting lives at risk.
“I can’t say that strongly enough,” the mayor said. Optimism, he said, has to be grounded in data. And right now the data is not good.
“Giving people false hope will crush their spirits and will kill more people,” Garcetti said, adding it would change their actions by instilling a sense of normality at the most abnormal time in a generation.
“This will not kill most of us,” he said. “It will kill a lot more people than we’re used to dying around us.”
Thegatewaypundit.com reports: President Trump said during a Fox News town hall that he would like to have the country back open for business by Easter.
“I would love to have [the country] open by Easter,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It’s such an important day for other reasons.”
President Trump has also tweeted that the cure cannot be worse that the problem, suggesting he is gearing up to put Americans back to work soon.