President Trump should use his visit to Pennsylvania to explain how he plans to ramp up nationwide COVID-19 testing and get more protective equipment to frontline health workers before reopening the economy.

Pennsylvanians are doing the right thing to keep themselves and others safe. They are keeping their distance and wearing masks even if President Trump refuses to do so.

The patients we talk to want to resume their lives and they want a safe, responsible strategy to reopen our economy. What they do not deserve are chaotic tweets and mixed messages from Mr. Trump that confuse and divide people.

The overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians are rightly concerned that Mr. Trump is hastily forcing Pennsylvanians back to workplaces without safety guidelines, which will lead to more infections, more sickness and more deaths. Mr. Trump should listen to them.

As physicians, we are concerned that Mr. Trump’s visit to Owens & Minor in Upper Macungie potentially endangers the health of workers if he refuses to wear a mask, in defiance of recommendations from health experts and scientific consensus. Additionally, it downplays the risk to those who look to him for leadership. Research shows that wearing a mask significantly reduces the risk of transmitting COVID-19, which can be spread through sneezing, coughing, and even breathing.

While political pundits can determine whether Mr. Trump’s visit is an election-year photo op in a critical swing state, we believe, as medical professionals, that the American people deserve better. Mr. Trump must still fix our nation’s anemic testing rate. While public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, repeatedly warn against reopening the economy too soon, the Trump Administration has yet to explain how he plans to safely reopen the economy if he can’t increase nationwide testing from 300,000 a day to the more than 1 million we need to identify infections, trace people with COVID-19, and isolate them to prevent outbreaks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed the lives of more than 80,000 Americans, including more than 3,400 Pennsylvanians. Doctors and the American people don’t have time for political theater.

Max Cooper, MD; Emergency Physician & Committee to Protect Medicare, PA State Lead (Philadelphia)

Aimee Johnson, MD; Pediatrician (Macungie)

Ritu Thamman, MD; Cardiologist (Pittsburgh)

Phil Lewis, MD, MPH; Preventative Medicine (Newtown)

Christopher Bradley, MD, Ph.D; Neurologist (Collegeville)

Andrew Henderson, MD; Pediatrician (Bryan Mawr)

William Houston, MD; Pediatrician (Ardmore)

Lynne Maxwell, MD, FAAP; Anesthesiologist (Philadelphia)

Larry Durlofsky, DO; Geriatric Psychiatry (Bryn Mawr)

Barry Farkas, MD; Geriatrician (Pittsburgh)

Paul Seiferth, MD; Family Medicine (Allison Park)

Greg Wanner, DO; Emergency Physician (Garnet Valley)

Tiffany Behringer, MD; Emergency Physician (Pittsburgh)

Susan Stauffer, MD, MPH, FAAEM; Emergency Physician (Pittsburgh)

Gregory Frattaroli, MD; Emergency Physician (Wallingford)

Priscilla Sepe, MD; Family Physician (Cheltenham Twp)

Judith Albert, MD; OB/GYN (Pittsburgh)

Asanthi Ratnasekera, DO, FACS; Trauma/Critical Care (Broomall)