By Aaron Miller-
U.S president Donald Trump has said expressed concern that the lock down due to the coronavirus pandemic can lead to suicides and damage the economy if it goes on for too long.
The president said that the U.S economy was not built to be shut as he expressed a reluctance to keep the country on lock down for months- the duration considered necessary by the World Health Organisation in order to fight the pandemic.
As the U.S death toll rose by over 100, the U.S president said the ‘cure’ for the pandemic could be ‘worse than the problem itself’, and said he is eager to reopen the U.S economy in weeks not months , despite the continuous rise in the death toll caused by the virus.
Trump made reference to states across the country where confirmed coronavirus cases are reported to be relatively low. He mentioned rural states such as Nebraska, Iowa, and Idaho. The president argued that it was essential to the economy to be “opening up our country” again as soon as possible.
“Our country was not built to be shut down,” Trump said. “This is not a country that was built for this.” His comments followed praise from White House officials to Americans for their “selflessness” in the first week of widespread restrictions. Trump’s top advisers referred to current government restrictions as a “15-day challenge” and pledged to revisit the need for sweeping measures to prevent the spread of the virus in just another week.
“I’m not looking at months, I can tell you right now.”Trump said: “People get tremendous anxiety and depression and you have suicide over things like this, when you have a terrible economy, you have death, definitely … in far greater numbers than we’re talking about with regard to the virus.”
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation said: “We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the US. So it does have that potential [to become the centre of the pandemic],” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman