By Kevin Liptak and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
(CNN) President Donald Trump says he wants the nation “opened up and just raring to go by Easter” — a date just more than two weeks away that few health experts believe will be sufficient in containing the spread of coronavirus.
Speaking during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday, Trump reiterated he was eager to see the nation return to normal soon, even as doctors warn the nation will see a massive spike in cases if Americans return to crowded workplaces or events.
“I give it two weeks,” Trump said earlier in the town hall, suggesting he was ready to phase out his 15-day self-isolating guidelines when they expire. “I guess by Monday or Tuesday, it’s about two weeks. We will assess at that time and give it more time if we need a little more time. We have to open this country up.”Trump predicts ‘this is going to be bad’ but vows to reopen America.
But Trump said Monday that the health experts on his task force do not necessarily agree with his hope for a quick return to their jobs to boost the economy. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, are also sounding the alarm.
“There will be no normally functioning economy if our hospitals are overwhelmed and thousands of Americans of all ages, including our doctors and nurses, lay dying because we have failed to do what’s necessary to stop the virus,” Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, tweeted Tuesday.Trump’s new Easter goal — to have the country back to normal by Sunday, April 12 — came hours after the New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the state is expecting a height of coronavirus infections to come in two to three weeks.
Dr. Deborah Birx, who serves as the White House coronavirus coordinator, was asked during the town hall whether she thinks an Easter deadline is realistic.”A lot of what we’ve done is tackle this epidemic the way people said we should have tackled the flu in 1918,” Birx responded, adding that the President has asked the task force to use these two weeks “to get all the data from around the country.”
She also reasserted that “every American needs to continue the President’s guidelines for these next six or seven days.”Despite announcing the new guidelines under the banner “The President’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America,” Trump seemed to distance himself from the practices during the town hall.”Somehow, the word got out that this is the thing we are supposed to be doing,” he said, noting the country had “never done a thing like this before.”
“But we had to do it. It’s been very painful for our country and very destabilizing,” he said.As his advisers prepare options for returning the country to work, Trump suggested that Americans would still be able to exercise good health practices while still returning to normal.
“We have to go back to work much sooner than people thought,” he said.Trump again compared coronavirus to the flu and auto accidents, despite warnings from his health advisers that such analogies make little sense.”We lose thousands and thousands of people to the flu. We don’t turn the country off,” he said, adding: “We lose much more than that to automobile accidents.”
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said comparing coronavirus to auto accidents was a “false equivalency” and said it was important to “face the fact” that coronavirus is more lethal than the flu.