US to extend coronavirus guidelines until Apr 30: Trump

WASHINGTON D.C., Mar 30, 2020, TASS. The United States is officially extending effect of its sanitary restrictions until April 30 to fight the coronavirus spread, US President Donald Trump told a press conference on Sunday, TASS reported.

“The better you do [follow the guidelines], the faster this whole nightmare will end,” he emphasized. “We will be extending our guidelines to April 30 to slow the spread.” The White House occupant, at the same time, said that the US administration will hopefully not be forced to extend this beyond April 30.

In the beginning of last week, the White House shared a list of recommendations aimed at fighting the virus spreading across the country. Notably, US citizens are advised to work from home if possible, cancelled planned trips, avoid bars, restaurants and other places of public gatherings. The guidelines were expected to be effective until March 30.

On Wednesday, Trump confirmed that he would like to at least partially reopen private businesses hugely affected by the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country by Easter. At the same time, head of the US administration assured that he would take into account doctors’ recommendation, particularly those from director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator.

The Johns Hopkins University, which calculates statistics based on the government, WHO and other official source numbers, said that the US has more than 139,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, while over 2,400 people died from it.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus – named COVID-19 by the WHO – have been reported in more than 160 countries, including Russia. The WHO on March 11 declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.