More US states poised to reopen amid warnings
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Another wave of states prepared to ease coronavirus restrictions on United States commerce this week, despite health experts warning there is still too little diagnostic testing, while the White House forecast a staggering jump in the nation鈥檚 monthly jobless rate.
Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee were set to join several other states in reopening businesses without the means to screen systematically for infected people who may be contagious but asymptomatic, and to trace their contacts with others they might have exposed.
Many merchants have voiced ambivalence about returning to work absent the prerequisite public health measures authorities have advocated.
鈥淚 would stay home if the government encouraged that, but they鈥檙e not. They鈥檙e saying, 鈥楬ey, the best thing to do is go back to work, even though it might be risky,鈥欌 Royal Rose, 39, owner of a tattoo studio in Greeley, Colorado, said.
Rose said she was reopening her shop after closing a month ago, not because she wants to but because bills are piling up and she 鈥渉as no choice.鈥
Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina have already forged ahead to restart their economies following weeks of mandatory lockdowns that have thrown nearly one in six American workers out of their jobs.
Public health authorities say increasing human interactions and economic activity now 鈥 without the means to do so safely 鈥 will only backfire, sparking a new surge of infections just as social-distancing measures appear to be bringing outbreaks under control.
Medical experts say strict adherence to business closures and stay-at-home orders imposed over the past several weeks by governors in 42 of 50 states have worked to level off rates of hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units.
Still the number of known US infections climbed higher on Sunday, topping 960,000 as the number of lives lost to COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus, surpassed 54,700.
The continuing rise in the number of US cases has been attributed in part to increased diagnostic screening. But health authorities also warn that testing and contact tracing must be vastly expanded before shuttered businesses can be safely reopened on a wide scale.
The economic fallout from the unprecedented social distancing requirements has been devastating.
Business shutdowns have led to a record 26.5 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since mid-March. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted on Friday the economy would contract at an annual rate of nearly 40 percent in the second quarter.
Even next year, the CBO forecast calls for an unemployment rate averaging above 10 percent. Before the pandemic struck, the US jobless rate was hovering at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters on Sunday that the jobless rate would likely hit 16 percent or more in April.
鈥淚 think the next couple of months are going to look terrible,鈥 he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to see numbers as bad as anything we鈥檝e ever seen before.鈥
Opinion polls have generally shown a bipartisan majority of Americans want to remain at home to protect themselves from the coronavirus, despite the impact on the economy.
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