[ad_1]
(CNN) – A day before federal guidelines to slow down the spread of the coronavirus expire, Trump administration officials noted that strong federal guidelines for social distancing would relax as states begin to reopen their economies.
“Frankly, all of the states in the United States have adopted those guidelines at a minimum, or even done more, and now our focus is to work with states as governors, like Governor John Bel Edwards, to reveal plans to open their states again,” said the vice president. Mike Pence said he and other members of the task force met with President Donald Trump and Edwards, a Democrat, in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Trump added that the current guidelines will “fade” as states begin to reopen.
“I am very much in favor of what they are doing,” Trump said of the governors who are opening businesses. “They are starting it.”
“The new guide we have released is a guide on how you can do it safely and responsibly,” added Pence.
The current guidelines, Pence said, “are very much incorporated into the new, I think you could say, they are very much incorporated into the guide we are giving states to open up the United States again.”
Dr. Deborah Birx, also at the meeting, said the administration has been “very encouraged to see how the federal guidelines have helped inform, or at least provide a framework for governors and move forward.”
According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States. USA And almost 60,000 deaths so far.
Trump, who initially introduced the guidelines in mid-March, then extended the social distancing guidelines nationwide for another 30 days at the end of the month, an abrupt reversal of his momentum when reopening the country.
The 15-day guidelines Trump announced two weeks earlier would expire, and the president had suggested he was seeking to relax them, at least in some parts of the country. It even floated Easter, April 12, as a potential date for the country to return to normal before backing down.
This story was first published on CNN.com “Trump says federal guidelines for social distancing will ‘fade away.'”
[ad_2]
