My fellow Americans,
Since March 16th, you and I together have found it necessary to take time out from our usual and primary responsibility of making a living in order to plan our strategy for combating an enemy different from any national crisis in our history. The enemy we're facing today is more ruthless or powerful than any hungry, angry or vengeful foreign state. Being an international disease, COVID-19 is beyond mastery by treaty or military force. COVID-19's destruction will require powers beyond those of a constitutionally established military commander-in-chief. No president in American history has ever faced the challenge that confronts me as your president. I can only adequately face this challenge with your help.
As this pandemic threatens our economic well-being, we also feel a sense of insecurity, anxiety and fear. We find that we're faced with three immediate tasks. First, we need to agree upon our immediate priorities, then what those priorities will require of us, and how they will sufficiently relate to one another.
Our first priority is that of supplying every American household with funds sufficient to enable them to purchase the goods and services they require for their immediate safety and survival during this most difficult time of unemployment and decreasing economic and social resources. To overcome these unhappy circumstances, the Congress and I have agreed to put a floor under every taxpayer's household income throughout the country.
Our second priority during the immediate future will be to identify those methods and materials we'll need to utilize in order to minimize the spread of COVID-19. I shall personally be overseeing and coordinating the manufacture, purchase, and distribution of face masks and other medical materials that are vital to the prevention of COVID-19 as well as for its treatment.
Priority number 3 in my mind is that of getting the best minds available to continuously monitor our reaction to this deadly pandemic. To that end, I'm appointing a national task force consisting of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the creative ideas of former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter as we move step by step through the economic, social, and emotional adjustment required to bring about the ultimate destruction of this unprovoked challenge to our national well-being.
During recent weeks there has been too much emphasis regarding how prepared we should or might have been to effectively cope with the Coronavirus. What matters most in the long run is what we all do to master this international enemy that threatens the well-being and future of men and women everywhere in the world.
As I indicated a moment or two ago, our war on COVID-19, while not a military operation, will require you and me to be patient and brave, as well as steadfast in our determination to protect one another from harm. In order to do this, it's possible that we'll be forced to re-open our societal activities in phases. Sadly, and most anxiously, too little is known about both the immediate and long-term dangers there may be as we contract, pass through, and recover from this pandemic.
Since January 20th, 2017, my responsibility has been to protect America. To that end, I have no evidence to believe that this disease comes from the deliberate activity of any government. COVID-19 is therefore an act of nature rather than an act of war.
It's likely that as we re-open restaurants, bars, theaters, and even some out-of-door places of activity, there may be the need for the extensive use of face masks and hand sanitizer, as well as the need for an increasing number of testing sites.
As you return to work, some of you will encounter higher levels of risk than will others, due to the nature of your employment which may require increasing physical contact with one another as well as with the public. Therefore, anxious as you and I may be to normalize life throughout America, we must always be ready in our planning about life during the coming months to draw the distinction between needful activities and merely desirable ones.
For the sake of our families, our neighbors, our customers and our friends, each of us must be ready to be soldiers in our national struggle against an international pandemic as well as citizens whose first priority is for the safety and security of one another!
This outlook is the only sure path to a future that is creative, secure, and indicative of a free, prosperous and happy people.
As your president, I'm anxious to provide leadership down that path!
Thank You, God bless you, and goodnight!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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