President Donald Trump is weighing a regional response to the global coronavirus pandemic in getting the U.S. getting back to work, but it will be driven by data, science, and the expertise of health officials.
"I am looking forward to that day when it levels out and then goes down," Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" on Thursday night.
"We have to get rid of this," he added to host Sean Hannity. "There's a possibility I'll do it in quadrants, in pieces. You'll take the farm belt. You'll take certain states that aren't badly impacted, where they have almost none or they have just a little bit.
"You take a look at some of these great states like Iowa, you take a look at Idaho, and you take a look at Nebraska."
"So, I think we can open up sections, quadrants, and then just keep them going until the whole country is opened up, but we have to open up," Trump added later. "The people want to get back to work. They want to get back. That's the way we are engineered."
New York state, which has more confirmed coronavirus cases (39,000) than all but four other countries, is one place that will need far more time.
"New York is a bigger deal but it's going to go [back to work] also, but I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be," Trump said.
"So, look, it's a very bad situation, we haven't seen anything like it, but the end result is we've got to get back to work, and I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country, the farm belt, certain parts of the midwest, other places."
Speaking to those concerned about the deaths in New York, particularly New York City, Trump expressed hope the increased testing will render COVID-19 to be far more manageable as a health crisis.
"The mortality is much, much better in our way than people were thinking," Trump said, as the U.S. confirmed-case death rate is around 1.5%, in part because U.S. has become the world leader in testing.
"We've established great testing," he said. "We're testing now more than anybody."
Ultimately, it is up to the local governments to manage the pandemic specific to their region.
"This has to be managed by local government and by the governors," Trump said. "It can't be managed by the federal government.
"Some of these governors take, take, take, and then they complain," Trump lamented.
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.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.