Trump hopes to reopen economy by Easter as US registers 10,000 new COVID-19 cases

The number of coronavirus cases in the United States jumped by nearly 10,000 while about 150 Americans died in a day even as President Donald Trump hoped to reopen the country's economy by Easter, April 12.

With millions of Americans under a lockdown, the National Guard as well as the armed forces were pressed into service in several states such as New York which saw at least 53 deaths and about 5,000 new cases on Tuesday. New York has so far reported more than 25,000 COVID-19 cases and 210 fatalities.

According to Worldometer, a website which compiles COVID-19 cases, nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases were reported across the country on Tuesday alone taking the total to around 54,000 while the number of fatalities surged by 150 in a day bringing its total to about 700.

Apart from New York, neighbouring New Jersey, along with California, Michigan, Illinois and Florida were the other coronavirus hotspots. However, no new cases or deaths were reported in Washington, the state which was first hit by the pathogen in the US.

President Trump, whose approval rating touched 50 per cent for the first time apparently because of his handling the coronavirus crisis on a war footing, put up a brave front on Tuesday telling reporters that he expects things to go back to normal in about three weeks' time by Easter, which is on April 12.

"I want to encourage everyone to keep following our guidelines on social distancing, avoiding large gatherings, hand washing and all the other things that everybody knows they are supposed to be doing. Ultimately, the goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to very large sections of our country as we near the end of our historic battle with the invisible enemy," the president said.

"I hope we can do this by Easter. I think that would be a great thing for our country and we are all working very hard to make that a reality. We will be meeting a lot of people to see if it can be done," he said and also hoped the Congress would soon vote on a USD 2 trillion bill that would deliver direct cash payments to struggling Americans.

"Easter is our timeline, what a great timeline that would be," Trump said but asserted that his first priority was always the health and safety of the American people.

However, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci cautioned against setting any timeline for resolving the crisis, saying, "You got to be very flexible."