[ad_1]
President Donald Trump will unveil his plan to reopen the country in a phone call with the governors on Thursday afternoon, even when he was told by some of the nation’s top CEOs that more coronavirus testing is needed before the economy can start again.
Despite warnings from CEOs and healthcare professionals, President Trump has shown his impatience with the shutdown and has focused on reopening May Day.
“We want to open our country again,” Trump said Wednesday.
President Donald Trump will reveal his plan to reopen the country in a phone call with the governors on Thursday afternoon.
President Trump has shown his impatience with the closure caused by the coronavirus and is pushing for a May 1 reopening.
But CEOs warned the president that there must be more tests for coronavirus before companies can reopen
And Trump said some states may reopen before May 1, marking the end of his administration’s ’30 days to curb the spread ‘plan.
‘We will open states, some states long before others. And we believe that some of the states may open before the May 1 deadline, ” Trump said in the Rose Garden of the White House.
His plan will be revealed when new Labor Department figures showed that more than 5.2 million Americans applied for unemployment last week, bringing the total to 22 million.
Health care officials have warned that there could be a second wave of coronavirus cases if the country reopens too soon.
And the CEOs, in a series of calls with the president on Wednesday, said more evidence of coronavirus was needed before the economy could reopen.
The calls were part of Trump’s Great Groups of the American Economic Reactivation Industry: a coalition formed by the White House as an advisory team on how the economy can recover from the devastation caused by the coronavirus.
Executives involved in the first call, which included leaders from the banking, financial services, food and beverage, hospitality and retail industries, described the current test levels as inadequate to effectively reopen the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported.
And a corporate executive said the president was focused on the wrong.
“You have to stop talking about reigniting the economy and start talking about making people feel safe, the things that are happening around testing and the health system.” That is the only way you can really reopen the economy over a period of time, ” the CEO told Politico.
But the president’s focus remains on reopening.
“Trump made it very clear that he was ready to leave on May 1,” said one person who was on one of the calls to the Washington Post.
Trump has wagered his reelection on a strong American economy and has repeatedly complained that the coronavirus disrupted “the largest economy” in history.
“It has been a horrible time to see so much death and destruction, especially when you come out of what was once the largest economy in the history of the world.” The biggest. There has never been an economy like the one we had produced, but we will produce it again. And I think we will produce it again very quickly, “he said Wednesday at the Rose Garden.
Originally, the president wanted to reopen the country on Easter Sunday, a date from which health care officials withdrew it.
Now he has focused on May 1 and seems committed to that date, although he has toned it down saying that different areas of the country will open at different times.
Some states have already extended orders to stay home beyond May 1. In Virginia, Governor Ralph Northam announced Wednesday that he will extend his executive order imposing restrictions on companies for two more weeks, until May 8.
Trump will begin his effort to reopen the United States on Thursday at 3 p.m. call with the governors of the nation.
The new guidelines will advise states on how best to assess whether they are ready to move away from social distancing, CNN reported.
There will also be options on how to reopen workplaces, including employee temperature checks, increased coronavirus testing, and the use of masks.
And there will be recommendations for schools, child care centers, and summer camps, since it could be difficult for many parents to return to the workplace without proper child care.
However, what the 10-page plan lacks is specific metrics that communities must meet before reopening, NBC News reported.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that President Trump’s May 1 date was “a little too optimistic” and said the country “is not there yet.”
But while Trump is ready to open up the country, one of his top medical advisers is not.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the United States does not yet have the testing and tracking procedures necessary to begin reopening the nation’s economy.
“We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can trust, and we are not there yet,” he said.
He also said the May 1 goal is “a little too optimistic” for many areas of the country.
Fauci has been absent in the president’s last two public press sessions.
On Wednesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the key medical experts in the coronavirus task force, noted that nine states have had fewer than 1,000 cases. Those states are also seeing fewer than 30 new cases per day.
“These are the ones the president refers to who have been silent, relatively silent during this epidemic and pandemic,” he said. “So these are the groups that we are working with, very specifically,” he said.
