Delivering a message of hope and optimism, President Donald Trump said the administration is talking to doctors in the coming days before potentially considering opening back up some areas of the United States to get the economy going again, despite the global coronavirus pandemic.
"Our country wasn't built to be shut down," Trump told reporters Monday at the daily white house coronavirus task force briefing, urging hope for the U.S. to "get back to work" in areas health experts advise can resume business.
"We're not going to let to the cure to be worse than the problem."
Trump said he will not allow the coronavirus to do long-lasting damage to the U.S. economy and he would consider how to move forward after a 15-day shutdown ends next week.
"America will again and soon be open for business, very soon," Trump said. "A lot sooner than three or four months."
"This is a medical problem. We are not going to let it turn into a long-lasting financial problem."
Trump announced experimental drug Chloroquine is going to be administered to patients in New York City starting Tuesday morning.
"There's a real chance it's going to have a tremendous impact," Trump said. "It's going to be a gift from God, a real game-changer."
Trump said if the economy is forced into a deep enough recession by social distancing measures, there could be deaths from suicides and other causes in excess of those caused by the coronavirus.
"I'm not looking at months, I can tell you right now," he said. "We're going to be opening up our country. Can't keep it closed for the next, you know, for years. This is going away."
Parts of the nation might be able to resume economic activity even as others fight outbreaks, he said.
"We can start thinking about, as an example, parts of our country are very lightly affected," he said.
"We can do two things at one time," he said. "Our country has learned a lot. We've learned about social distancing, we've learned about the hands."
Information from The Associated Press and Bloomberg was used in this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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