The highest Republican on the Home Intelligence Committee this week criticized closing faculties in his house state, California, as “means overkill” — whilst President Trump got here to a reckoning over the quantity of people that might die through the coronavirus pandemic.
The lawmaker, Consultant Devin G. Nunes, performed down the gravity of the outbreak throughout a Tuesday evening look on Fox Information.
“Look, the colleges have been simply canceled out right here in California, which is means overkill,” Mr. Nunes mentioned. “It’s attainable youngsters might have went again to highschool in two weeks to 4 weeks, however they only canceled the remainder of the colleges.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Nunes, 46, who represents components of Tulare and Fresno Counties, began trending on Twitter due to his feedback, which have been extensively condemned.
Mr. Nunes’s criticism of stay-at-home orders got here hours after Mr. Trump mentioned that america was dealing with “a really, very painful two weeks.” On the similar White Home briefing on Tuesday, prime public well being officers warned that as many as 240,000 individuals within the nation might die from the virus.
Throughout the Fox interview, Mr. Nunes continued to press for reopening components of the nation within the coming weeks, a view beforehand held by Mr. Trump.
“We have now to give attention to conserving individuals employed,” he mentioned. “I’ll inform you this, if we don’t begin to get individuals again to work on this nation over the subsequent week to 2 weeks, I don’t imagine that we will wait till the top of April.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who ordered the 40 million residents of his state to remain at house on March 19, informed CNN on Wednesday that the social distancing measures have been important to stopping the unfold of the virus. He mentioned that these states that had not issued stay-at-home orders wanted to behave.
“Our message is that this: What are you ready for?” Mr. Newsom mentioned. “What extra proof do you want?”
This isn’t the primary time that Mr. Nunes has been criticized for enjoying down the outbreak, which has killed at the very least 4,576 individuals and sickened greater than 200,000 in america.
Throughout one other look on Fox Information in mid-March, Mr. Nunes encouraged healthy Americans to continue to eat out at restaurants to soften the economic blow of the pandemic, contradicting the recommendations of health experts on social distancing.
On Tuesday, Mr. Nunes accused politicians and the media of fueling hysteria over the outbreak.
“Let’s stop looking at the death counters and let’s talk about how we can keep as many people employed as possible,” he said. “When you have people staying at home not taking care of themselves, you will end up with a hell of a lot more people dying by other causes than you will by the coronavirus.”
Mr. Nunes rose to prominence during the early part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. At the time, he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee but lost the gavel to Representative Adam B. Schiff of California when Democrats reclaimed control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.