'We Need A National Strategy': Gov. Polis And Mayor Hancock Call For Federal Guidance On Coronavirus
DENVER (CBS4) -- Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis both said the exact same thing during separate news conferences in the past week, "We need a national strategy." Both leaders were discussing actions being taken to suppress the spread the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, Gov. Polis noted that there's really no way to stop out-of-state residents from visiting or to enforce a quarantine for visitors.
"We need a national strategy. You know, every European country was able to, even though they normally have free movement through the EU, they're able to lock down their borders for a period of time, and now they have the ability to travel among most of those countries," Polis noted.
"The only real way in the nature of our federalist system to do this is with a coordinated national approach," he added.
On Friday, Mayor Hancock said he is proud of we've done in Denver and in Colorado, "in the absence of a national strategy."
"We need a national strategy on testing, and on our confrontation with COVID-19," Hancock said Friday. "We need national leadership on this issue. And right now the United States of America is without leadership on this issue, and it is no surprise that we are leading the globe, in terms of our infection rates, death rates, and of course hospitalization."
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On Monday, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on governments around the world to roll out a comprehensive strategy to suppress transmission of the virus.
He warned that there could be no return to normality any time soon as too many countries were bungling their response to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.N. health agency said the pandemic was only going to get "worse and worse and worse" unless people stuck to the basics of physical distancing, handwashing and wearing masks.