U.S. President Donald Trump says deciding when to reopen the country is “the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
He said Friday he will weigh the pros and cons of the decision with his health and economic advisers.
What is not immediately clear, however, is whether all the states will follow what Trump says. Trump did not officially close down the country, leaving each governor, instead, to make the decision about his or her state.
Trump has said he would like the country opened up again on May 1.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, told CNN that “the virus kind of decides whether it’s appropriate to open or not.” He cautioned that moving too early could result in another surge of infections.
While much of the globe is sheltering at home to slow the transmission of the deadly virus, the number of infections continues to climb.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reports more than 102,000 deaths worldwide from the virus, but many public health experts throughout the world believe fatalities are much higher due to limited postmortem testing, COVID-19 deaths that were not attributed to the disease and deaths that go unreported due to homelessness and other factors.
The U.S. is the world’s coronavirus hotspot with more than half a million of the world’s 1.7 million cases. It is followed by Spain with more than 158,000 and Italy with more than 147,000.
Friday was the deadliest U.S. day with the virus, logging more than 2,100 new fatalities.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. death toll is “an underestimation,” tracking only fatalities that were confirmed in laboratory tests.
In Brazil, the death toll surpassed 1,000 Friday, making it the first country in the region to reach that number.
China continued to report low numbers of new cases of the virus Friday, saying Hubei province, where the virus originated, logged zero new cases, while the rest of China recorded 46 new cases.
