During a Fox News Town Hall, President Donald Trump said he believes shutting down the economy for much longer would kill more people than the coronavirus.
“Many people — in my opinion, more people — are going to die if we allow this to continue,” Trump said Monday. “We have to go back to work, Our people want to go back to work.”
According to
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert for the Trump administration has repeatedly said it would take between six and eight weeks of following strict quarantine guidelines before the country could return to normal.
Trump, however, insists on reopening businesses and the economy saying he predicted “suicides by the thousands” if the country continues social distancing. “We can social distance ourselves and go to work.”
The Center for Disease Control predicted that between 200,000 and 1.7 million Americans will die from the virus if serious social distancing measures are not taken seriously.
On Wednesday, Trump blamed the media on Twitter, saying it’s
trying to keep stores closed and people from going back to work. Other politicians are following the President’s lead. Earlier this week, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that grandparents are willing to die in order to send people back to work and save the U.S. economy.“I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me — I have six grandchildren— that’s what we all care about …And I want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed. And that’s what I see,” Patrick said.
The coronavirus outbreak has resulted in more than 64,000 people being sick and more than 900 deaths across the country. If the number of positive cases continues to rise, every industry from airlines to the U.S. Postal Service could be affected.