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The White House on Monday urged all older Americans to stay home and everyone to avoid crowds and eating out at restaurants as part of sweeping new guidelines meant to combat an expected surge of coronavirus cases.
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President Donald Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force released the guidelines as the US government moved to try to blunt the impact of the virus, racing to bolster testing and aid even as financial markets fell and Americans scrambled to reorder their lives.
The new recommendations included: over the next 15 days, Americans should not gather in groups of more than 10 people, schooling should be at home and discretionary travel and social visits should be avoided. If anyone in a household tests positive for the virus, everyone who lives there should stay home.
"If everybody in America does what we ask for over the next 15 days, we will see a dramatic difference," Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said at the White House briefing.
When asked when the pandemic would subside, Trump said that “if we do a really good job" the crisis could pass by July or August, a far less optimistic take than in his earlier predictions that it could be over within weeks.
“We will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus,” the US president added. “We can turn the corner and turn it quickly.”
Trump also, for the first time, acknowledged that the virus, which has battered the global markets, may send the nation's economy into a recession, a potentially brutal blow for an incumbent in an election year.
He also, without providing details, said of the administration, “We're going to back the airlines 100 percent," a note of reassurance for aRead More – Source
