President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would “love” the country to be reopened by Easter, which falls on April 12.
“It’s such an important day for other reasons but I’ll make it an important day for this too. I’d love to have the country opened up and raring to go by Easter,” Trump said.
Cases of a new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 have spiked in the United States and more than 46,000 people have tested positive and 593 have died. States across the country have closed essential businesses and advised people to stay home whenever possible to curb the spread of a new coronavirus.
During a Fox News coronavirus town hall on Tuesday, Trump pushed the message that America wasn’t designed to shut down and advocated for returning to–at least–semi-normal life, as soon as possible.
“Our country is not built to shut down, our people are full of vim and vigor and energy, they don’t want to be locked into a house or apartment or some space,” Trump said. “We’re not built that way.”
The president added that keeping businesses closed and people out of work could “destroy” the country and repeated that he didn’t want the “cure to be worse than the problem itself.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
