U.S President Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to end a national shutdown over the coronavirus. On Tuesday, he argued that a prolonged economic lapse could destroy the United States and affirmed to open the country by Easter. Trump delivered his words during a Fox News virtual town hall from the White House. He said, “We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu and we don’t turn the country off. We have to get back to work. The faster we go back, the better because it would be too difficult to re-start the economy at the end of a prolonged shutdown”. It is noteworthy that White House-established 15-day shutdown period ends on Monday 12th April 2020.
Donald Trump has signaled he will consider a partial re-opening order then. A full order to get back to regular business could come a few weeks after that. The President said, “I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter”. Point to be noted that Trump is likely to reject any and all advice brought to him during the recent weeks from Trump’s Public Health Team. A number of public health experts have also warned the outburst could get much worse. They said there are hundreds of thousands of Americans being infected potentially with coronavirus Covid-19 by the end of 2020.
President Trump is currently focusing on the Covid-19 death toll. He said, “They came in and they said sir, we’re going to have to close the country. I said are you serious about this? We are going to take this country that’s fully employed and you’re telling me that we’re going to have to close it? You’re going to lose more people by putting the country into a massive recession”. Trump also predicted if people are forced to mostly stay at home for months, there will be suicides by the thousands. On Monday night, Trump affirmed most Americans can now go back to work. It clearly indicates people would automatically continue to practice social distancing and healthy hand-washing.