“The effects of COVID-19 on the United States labor market and the health of American communities are a matter of continuing national concern,” said Trump’s proclamation on Thursday. “The current number of new daily cases worldwide reported by the World Health Organization, for example, is greater than the comparable number present during June and, although drugs and vaccines have recently been available to an increasing number of Americans, their effects in the labor market and the health of the community has not yet been fully realized. “
Citing the continued impact of the pandemic on the labor market as the reason for the restrictions, it contradicts the refrain of the president’s campaign that the US was “getting around the pandemic” and its continuing rhetoric that the US did a great job in treating the coronavirus – even as the country continues to set new daily records of deaths and hospitalizations.
The message of the proclamation on economics is also contradictory for the president. In a video posted to his Twitter account on Thursday, in which the president praised the growth of the US economy, he boasted about the unemployment rate and said the number was “falling far below” the current 6.7% .