In a call Thursday, President Trump told the nation’s governors that the country needed to reopen for business to contain the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis.
“We all have to get smart,” Trump said, according to a recording shared with the Associated Press. “We have to open up our country; I’m sorry.”
For days, investors and business leaders have urged the president to find a way to bring people back to work. Jobless claims on Thursday soared to a record high as 3.3 million people filed for unemployment.
Public health advisers on the White House coronavirus task force have continued to stress the need to self-isolate to try to “bend the curve” away from a rising rate of infections, even as the president begins discussing potential exemptions to the rule.
In a letter sent to governors, Trump explained how the administration hoped to revise the March 16 social distancing guidelines as testing capacity grows. Areas will be graded by risk based on test results.
The new criteria, Trump wrote, “will incorporate robust surveillance testing, which allows us to monitor the spread of the virus throughout the country. Using these data-driven criteria, we will suggest guidelines categorizing counties as ‘high-risk, medium-risk, or low-risk.'”
Confirmed U.S. cases are quickly rising. New York City and New Orleans both this week saw new cases spike dramatically, while less densely populated states have seen far fewer.
By Thursday, New York had nearly 40,000 confirmed cases, or half of the total in the United States. Nebraska had 67. Louisiana has 1,795, with more than half in New Orleans.
