Stayathome orders. If you thought the shutdown was inconsistent and confusing, wait until you see the reopening, a struggle both in the administration between the president and his own Public Health officials and outside of it as state governors across the country plan to make their own decisions. We begin in new york city with our national correspondent, athena jones. Good morning. Good morning, poppy. Youve been hearing the president talk about may 1st as this date certain by which they might reopen the economy. Hes eager to do so. Were not hearing governors talk about specific dates, not hearing from folks from Governor Andrew Cuomo the state with the epicenter of the crisis. Hes focusing on the need for a smart, safe, coordinated plan and his thoughts echoed by cdc director robered redfield, has to be gradual, careful stepbystep reopening process. Listen to Governor Phil Murphy of new jersey and governor chris sununu of new hampshire. Watch. I fear if we open up too early, we have
5 a. M. Here on the east coast, and we are following two major stories. It is the beginning of another grim week as coronavirus cases continue to rise. Globally we know there are 2 Million People that have been diagnosed with coronavirus as you can see from the map. More than half a million cases are in the u. S. That means the u. S. Infection rate has now surpassed every other country in the world. As millions of americans cope with the sick or stay home orders, Severe Weather including a barrage of tornadoes have slammed 20 states. Its a double whammy. They are struggling without shelter, a home or at the very least a sleepless night. The sun will rise pretty soon and the new day will give us a bit of information on the damage from the storms. It was pretty rough. Its not over yet. From texas to georgia, which is where we are at cnn, more than half a Million People have lost electricity from the storms. The National Weather service says more than 30 tornadoes were reported in the pas
And i think that, you know, al ough there is a tendency i all western democracies, as youve seen the leaderst numbe have generallye1 gone up and obviously the individual businesses themselves. But i do think thatw3 while the president cannot reopen the economy in effect on his own authority, he can create a lot enormously complicate the task of having any kind of unified National Response to this. Because i do think if the president does talk about reopening thek s1jjaan on may 1st, he will put a lot of pressure on most of the republican governors to follow suit. And we could easily be back in the situation we7 re at the end of march where we not only had thise1 patchwork between the states where you had most states acting to lock things down, but some of the red states particularly the republican governor states, but even within states thise1 extraordinary division which iw3 wrote about late marchq where you have the large largest cities all trying to thats where the outbreaks have
State and local officials, because they may believe that its too soon to get back to business safely. Yeah, and the Staggering Number this morning, more than 20,000 americans killed by the coronavirus pandemic. The u. S. Is now number one worldwide in coronavirus deaths. All 50 states are under a federal disaster declaration for the first time in history, and it comes as the irs announces its beginning to send out or deposit, we should say, the first wave of stimulus checks. And this easter morning, most of the country is being asked to follow the advice to continue to stay socially distant, or practice social distancing, i should say, and worship and celebrate the holiday from home. There are some churches in the u. S. , and those leaders have said theyre not going to listen to local officials. Instead, theyre going to go on with services as usual. And just moments ago, pope francis leading Easter Sunday mass from a pretty empty st. Peters basilica, telling followers not to yield to f
A growing debate about whether its too soon to ease restrictions on social distancing and just as that is happening, breaking overnight, President Trump publicly signaling his frustration with the man seen by some as the Public Health conscience of the country. The president highlighted a message on social media that called for the firing of dr. Anthony fauci. Its coincidence this comes after dr. Fauci told cnn if the Trump Administration acted earlier to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, it would have saved lives. A President Trump spent weeks ignoring warnings about coronavirus. This morning, the number of confirmed cases has grown to more than 557,000 and, again, more than 22,000 americans have lost their lives. John, the debate this morning, of course, is when to reopen the country and how. Dr. Fauci suggests it could happen as early as next month on a rolling basis guided by testing and risk assessments made by governors and mayors. The governors of new york, new jersey and mary