President Donald Trump, in an interview Monday with “Fox & Friends,” said that the CCP virus cases will likely peak “around Easter” and defended the White Houses social distancing guidelines, saying they would last until the end of April.
“Were doing a lot of things and we dont want to [reduce the restrictions] too soon,” Trump said. “Around Easter, thats going to be the highest point, we think.”
Trump said that he hopes that April 30 “is a day where we can see some real progress” on the cases, adding that his administration “expect to see that, short of June 1, we think the death—its a terrible thing to say—will be brought to a very low number.”
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China before it was transmitted worldwide.
The guidelines that Trump and the pandemic task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence initially introduced were titled, “15 days to slow the spread,” including social distancing rules to mitigate human-to-human transmission. It has since been extended to April 30.
Trump told the broadcaster that he received information from task force officials that if the United States did nothing initially, 1.6 million to 2.2 million could have died from the CCP virus.
“If we didnt do anything, 2.2 million people could have died,” the president said. “The worst thing we can do is declare victory … and then not have victory,” Trump continued. “Were at war, this is war.”
His remarks come several days after posting to Twitter that he wanted Americans to go back to work by Easter, which is April 12.
“I think its going to happen pretty quickly,” Trump told reporters on March 26, saying that authorities will “start the process pretty soon” of allowing Americans to go back to work. “We have to go back to work. Our country is built on that,” the president remarked, adding that people “are going to be practicing” social distancing as much as they can when they start working again.
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