Coronavirus: Fauci says gradual reopening of US could start 'next month'

Trump administration has targeted 1 May for beginning to relax some social distancing restrictions in some parts of the US

The US could begin loosening some of its economic shutdown and social distancing restrictions as early as "next month," the nation's leading infectious disease expert said on Sunday.

That would be in line with the 1 May date pegged by Donald Trump for potentially re-opening parts of the country for business.

"It could probably start at least in some ways, maybe next month," Anthony Fauci, Trump's pandemic guru, told CNN on Sunday. "We are hoping that at the end of the month we could look around and say, 'Okay, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on?' If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down," Mr Fauci said.

Mr Fauci warned that any number of factors — large crowds, the return of cold weather next autumn — could lead to a "rebound" of the coronavirus in places that appear to have it under control.

He also indicated decisions on loosening economic and social distancing guidelines should be made at the state and local level level depending on each region's needs and circumstances instead of a national "one size fits all" approach.

"It is not going to be a light switch that we say, 'Okay it is now, June, July or whenever — click — the light switch goes back on.' It's going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you've already experienced and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced," Mr Fauci said.

Other Trump administration officials echoed Mr Fauci's cautious optimism about the 1 May target date for beginning to relax the stay-at-home restrictions in the US.

"We see light at the end of the tunnel," Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn told ABC on Sunday, when asked about the target date.

Mr Fauci ducked questions about a New York Times report from over the weekend that the he and other officials on the White House health team were trying to advise the president to begin urging Americans to adopt social distancing as early as the third week of February. Mr Trump did not issue such a proclamation until nearly four weeks later in mid-March.

"We look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often the recommendation is taken, sometimes it's not," Mr Fauci said. "It is what it is."

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Mr Fauci admitted some lives could have been saved if officials had begun instituting social distancing and other steps earlier than mid-March. But he stressed the complicated nature of global pandemics render such hindsight speculation a difficult task.

"Could you have done something a little bit earlier? Would it have had an impact? Obviously. But where we are right now is the result of a number of factors," Mr Fauci said, pointing to the sheer size of the US and its "heterogeneity."

Governors of states that have been acutely affected by Covid-19 cases expressed wariness about opening up their economies and relaxing social distancing guidelines too quickly.

"We need a health recovery first, and then the economic recovery. It has to come in that sequence," New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy said in a CNN interview. "I fear if we open up too early and we have not sufficiently made that health recovery and cracked the back of this virus, that we could be pouring gasoline on the fire, even inadvertently."​