Buttigieg on Biden Locking Down the Country: ‘Everything Has to Be on the Table’

Former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a surrogate for Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that should Biden win, a lockdown to curb the coronavirus pandemic would be “on the table.”

Anchor Jake Tapper asked, “Let’s turn to the pandemic. New coronavirus cases at a record high nationwide, including in your home state of Indiana. Some countries in Europe, such as the U.K. and France and Germany, are actually reinstitution lockdowns. If Joe Biden wins, should another lockdown be on the table?”

Buttigieg said, “Well, hopefully, it doesn’t come to that because we will see swift action coordinating with and supporting public health authorities telling us what we can do without requiring any kind of mandates, but everything has to be on the table in order to keep Americans safe. We should never have got to this point. It should never have been allowed to get this bad. But what we know is even something as simple as inexpensive as wearing a mask, if everybody does it, dramatically changes what’s possible. Also, lockdown or no, I have been talking to a lot of small business owners, especially here in the Midwest, who are saying when they are able to open, customers won’t know unless they know they are safe. This is one of many reasons where why the first rule of virus economics is to beat the virus or else you won’t have an economy. And that’s got to be the focus.”

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