Even if the United States is hit with a second wave of coronavirus, the president is declaring that he will not close the country again.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday at a Ford factory in Michigan while taking a tour of the facility, President Donald Trump said, “People say that’s a very distinct possibility, it’s standard.”
“We are going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country,” the president added. “We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out. But we are not closing our country.”
See Trump’s comments below:
America is going to fight coronavirus rather than shutting down again, Trump says:
— August Takala (@RudyTakala) May 21, 2020
"We are going to put out the fires. We're not gonna close the country. We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out. But we are not closing our country." pic.twitter.com/GIPVWAi7wq
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — who also serves on the White House Coronavirus Task Force — recently said that the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. is not completely under control, as IJR reported.
“I think we’re going in the right direction but the right direction does not mean we have by any means total control of this outbreak,” he said.
He also previously suggested that the virus will not completely disappear.
“It’s not gonna disappear from the planet which means as we get into next season, in my mind, it’s inevitable that we will have a return of the virus — or maybe that it never even went away,” Fauci said. “When it does, how we handle it will determine our fate.”
Speaking of “fate,” more recently, Fauci told actress Julia Roberts during an interview on states beginning to reopen their economies, he warned, “Now is not the time to tempt fate and pull back completely.”
Another health expert, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, said on April 22 it is “going to be more difficult and potentially more complicated because we will have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time,” in regards to next winter.
As the coronavirus outbreak spread across the U.S. and the country began the shutdown, it took a toll on the economy and caused jobless claims to skyrocket. However, now, all 50 states are beginning to reopen their economies in some form.
The U.S. has 1,621,333 confirmed coronavirus cases and 96,363 deaths due to the virus, as of Friday morning.