President Donald Trump said on Monday he is seeing how to resume the U.S. economy when a 15-day shutdown ends next week, even as the highly epidemic coronavirus is spreading quickly and hospitals are preparing for a wave of virus-related deaths.
“America will again and soon be open for business,” Trump said in a White House news conference. “We are not going to let it turn into a long-lasting financial problem.”
Trump announced instructions a week ago that he said designed to slow the development of the disease over 15 days, including restraining unnecessary tours and travel. In the meantime, economic activity has sufficed to a close in some states.
But looking at the loss of many jobs and a quick fall in stock markets and facing a tough re-election controversy, Trump has discreetly expressed his issues to aides and allies about the consequence of the restrictions on the long-term health of the economy.
Trump expressed to reporters that it was possible to resume economic activity in states with what he said were relatively low rates of infection, citing Nebraska, Idaho, and Iowa as examples, while pursuing to work on the hot zones in other states like New York.
“If it were up to the doctors, they’d say let’s shut down the entire world,” said Trump in a statement.