This live blog has now finished. Click here for the latest coronavirus updates.
President Trump said Tuesday he wants the U.S. “opened up” by Easter Sunday, which falls on April 12, despite an acceleration of coronavirus cases across the country. Mr. Trump’s comments came during a town hall on Fox News in which he signaled impatience over the widespread closing of businesses and the resulting economic slowdown.
“We’ll only do it if it’s good,” Mr. Trump added at a later briefing. “And maybe we do sections of the country, we do large sections of the country. That could be, too.” He said the administration is “very in touch” with medical experts and would follow “whatever they would do.”
But Dr. Tom Inglesby, the director of Johns Hopkins’ Center for Health Security, said on the “CBS Evening News” he thinks it’s “going to take at least until Easter to even begin to see the impact of the social distancing measures that have been put in place in the last week.”
As of Tuesday evening, there were more than 54,800 reported cases in the U.S. and more than 780 people have deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for detailed information on coronavirus treatment and prevention.
