US: Trump considering grounding domestic flights to coronavirus hot spots

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is weighing grounding domestic flights between coronavirus hot spots as he ramps up efforts to try to contain the pandemic’s spread. “We’re thinking about doing that,” Trump said, a day after he warned the nation to brace for a “hell of a bad two weeks,” with 100,000 to 240,000 coronavirus deaths projected, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained. Limited flights continue to run between cities like New York and Detroit, though passenger counts have plummeted across the nation. The TSA screened just 146,348 passengers Tuesday, down from 2,026,256 the same day last year. Nonetheless, Trump said he was looking at new restrictions, even as he voiced concern about the impact on already-struggling airlines, saying that, once you do that, “you really are clamping down” on “an industry that is desperately needed.” Trump, however, offered mixed messages during the briefing. He seemed to suggest that he was looking to temporarily ground all domestic flights, saying, “We’re looking at the whole thing because we’re getting into a position now where we want to do that, we have to do that ... and we may have some recommendations.” But pressed later on whether that was his intention, he said he was thinking of something less restrictive. “I am looking where flights are going into hot spots,” he said. “Closing up every single flight on every single airline, that’s a very, very, very rough decision. But we are thinking about hot spots where you go from spot to spot, both hot. And we’ll let you know fairly soon.” Trump in the past has said he was reluctant to ground flights because of challenges in getting the system back up and running once the threat posed by the virus fades.<br/>