US President Donald Trump has unveiled a three-phase plan to reopen the world’s largest economy, jolted by the COVID-19 pandemic, that allows governors to gradually ease the crippling lockdown in their states.
His announcement came on a day when the labour departmentsaid another 5.2 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week. Thejob losses from the COVID-19 pandemic was 22 million in March, easily the worststretch of US job losses on record. The International Monetary Fund this weekprojected that the American economy will shrink this year by 5.9 per centamidst the pandemic that has wrecked havoc in the country.
“America wants to be open and Americans want to beopen,” he said. “A national shutdown is not a sustainable long-termsolution,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House briefing on thecoronavirus outbreak.
Asserting that a prolonged lockdown, combined with a forcedeconomic depression, would inflict an immense and wide-ranging toll on publichealth, Trump told reporters on Thursday that his administration is issuing newfederal guidelines that will allow governors to take a phased approach toreopening their individual states.
Trump said healthy Americans will now be able to return towork if conditions on the ground allow.
“Instead of a blanket shutdown, we will pursue a focuson sheltering the highest risk individuals,” he said, adding that hisadministration is establishing clear scientific metric and benchmarks ontesting new case growth and hospital capacity that must be met before advancingto each phase.
“If the virus returns in the fall, as some scientiststhink it may, possibly, these guidelines will ensure that our country is up andrunning so that we can likewise put it out quickly,” he said.
Currently more than 95 per cent of America’s 330 millionpopulation are under a stay-at-home order. More than 670,000 Americans havecontracted the coronavirus, and over 33,000 have lost their lives, according tolatest Johns Hopkins University figures.
A record 4,591 Americans died in the last 24 hours alone dueto the novel coronavirus in the US, which has the highest number of COVID-19casualties in the world.