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| Coronavirus: White House plans to disband virus task force | Coronavirus: White House plans to disband virus task force |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| US Vice-President Mike Pence has said the White House coronavirus task force could be disbanded this month because of the country's "tremendous progress". | US Vice-President Mike Pence has said the White House coronavirus task force could be disbanded this month because of the country's "tremendous progress". |
| He told reporters the task force may hand over US pandemic response to be led on an "agency-by-agency level" at the end of May or early June. | He told reporters the task force may hand over US pandemic response to be led on an "agency-by-agency level" at the end of May or early June. |
| New confirmed infections per day in the US currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000. | New confirmed infections per day in the US currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000. |
| US health officials warn the virus may spread as businesses begin to reopen. | US health officials warn the virus may spread as businesses begin to reopen. |
| What did the vice-president say? | |
| In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, Mr Pence was asked about a report that the task force would soon wind down. | |
| He said the Trump administration was "starting to look at the Memorial Day window, early June window as a time when we could begin to transition back to having our agencies begin to manage, begin to manage our national response in a more traditional manner". | |
| He said it was "a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country". | |
| White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later tweeted that the president "will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening". | |
| What did President Trump say? | |
| During a visit to a mask-manufacturing factory in Phoenix, Arizona, President Donald Trump told journalists: "Mike Pence and the task force have done a great job, but we're now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening. And we'll have a different group probably set up for that." | |
| Mr Trump continued: 'We have now a different, a sort of a combination of safety and reopening. So we'll have something in a different form." | |
| The president was asked if it was "mission accomplished", and he said: "No, I wouldn't say that at all." | |
| The president was asked, too, if White House task force experts Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci would still be involved in efforts to address the coronavirus. | |
| "They will be and so will other doctors and so will other experts in the field," the president answered. "We are bringing our country back." |