Trump shifts COVID focus to economy, reopening

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is trying to put the coronavirus behind him and the nation, pivoting his focus to plans to reopen the country even as the virus continues to spread.

As part of the effort, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be releasing new priorities for virus testing late Monday, including testing people who show no symptoms but are in high-risk settings.

And the White House is to unveil what it describes as a comprehensive overview of its efforts to make testing for COVID-19 more widely available, with the goal of having enough supplies available for states to test at least 2.6% of their people per month.

The flurry of announcements comes as the White House tries to shift its approach amid an erosion in public support for the president.

What had been his greatest asset in the reelection campaign, his ability to blanket news headlines with freewheeling performances at his daily White House briefings, has become a daily liability.

At the same time, new Republican Party polling shows Trump’s path to a second term depends on the public’s perception of how quickly the economy rebounds from the state-by-state shutdowns meant to slow the spread of the virus.

Days after he publicly mused that scientists should explore the injection of toxic disinfectants as a potential virus cure, Trump was said to have rejected the usefulness of his daily task force briefings, where he has time and again clashed with scientific experts and reporters.

Trump’s aides had been trying to move the president onto more familiar — and safer, they hope — ground: Talking up the economy, in more tightly controlled settings.

But Trump, long reluctant to cede the spotlight, appeared to have other plans. Hours after the White House scrubbed the nightly briefing from the official White House schedule, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany reversed course.

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