Daily US Times: President Donald Trump’s approval stands at 43% and disapproval rating is at 54%, according to a new Gallup poll.
In March, his approval rating is down significantly from 49%, while his disapproval rating is up 9 points from 45%.
When the coronavirus pandemic began to grip the country, Trump received a clear boost in his approval rating.
His net approval rating (approval – disapproval) among voters shot up to its highest point since the first month of his presidency, but now, just weeks later, as the pandemic getting worse, Trump’s popularity has been dropping.
Looking at the data, Trump seems to have had one of the fastest retreats of a rally around the flag effect in modern polling history.
The President’s net approval rating stood at -10 points among voters in an aggregate of polls as late as March 11. Less than three weeks later, it got up to -4 points on March 27 and today, it’s back down to -8 points.
It is possible that Trump could see some sort of secondary bounce when restrictions are lifted in states or when a vaccine is found.
US coronavirus deaths pass 39,000
More than 39,000 people have now died in the United States due to coronavirus, while there are at least 735,287 coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.
New York City is the worst-hit area in the entire country, where more than 13,000 people died.
US Vice President Mike Pence defended President Trump’s coronavirus response on Sunday, saying he believed there would soon be enough testing to reopen the country.
He was talking with Fox News and when asked about the protestors and Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets, he said “the American people know that no one in America wants to reopen this country more than Donald Trump” and that President Trump is going to continue to “encourage governors safely and responsibly let America go back to work.”
The Vice President said the administration believes that “once we activate all the labs that can do coronavirus testing,” it will be sufficient for any state in America to move into phase one.
Trump is pushing the reopen
Trump administration unveiled an 18-page reopen plan document, detailing three phases to reopen state economies, with each phase lasting, at minimum, 14 days.
Recommendations included in all three phases including good personal hygiene and employers developing policies to ensure social distancing, testing, and contact tracing.
Phase one includes much of the current lockdown measures such as not gathering in groups and avoiding non-essential travel. But it says large venues such as sports venues, places of worship and restaurants “can operate under strict physical distancing protocols”.
Phase two allows non-essential travel to resume only if there is no evidence of a resurgence of the coronavirus.
Under phase three, states which are still seeing a downward trend of symptoms and cases can allow “public interactions” with physical distancing and the unrestricted staffing of worksites.
You can see the full plan here.
