“I think what you’ll see in May as the states are reopening now is May will be a transition month, you’ll see a lot of states starting to phase in the different reopening based on the safety guidelines that President Trump outlined on April 19,” Kushner said on “Fox & Friends,” reports The Hill.
“I think you’ll see by June that a lot of the country should be back to normal, and the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again,” the president’s son-in-law continued.
President Donald Trump’s push to get the country reopened and “back to normal” poses some huge political risks, especially because COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are still climbing and health experts are cautioning states not to move too fast. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there are over one million coronavirus cases in the U.S.
There is a push by the administration and many states to jumpstart the economy, and that is understandable. Over 20 million Americans have filed for unemployment in recent weeks, while the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.8 percent in the first quarter, the biggest slide since 2008.
But, at the same time, government health officials are warning that more testing and contact tracing capacity is needed to safely reopen businesses. However, Kushner, who has led what has been referred to as a “shadow task force” on the coronavirus, asserted testing capacity is already where it needed to be for states to start lifting restrictions.
“I always find that we see the leading indicators and often the media sees the lagging indicators,” he said Wednesday. “But the leading indicators are testing, are extraordinarily positive, and I’m very confident that we have all testing we need to start opening the country in accordance with the safety guidelines that President Trump, the vice president, Dr. [Deborah] Birx and Dr. Fauci laid out on April 19.”
The biggest question in many people’s minds is what will “normal” be when this is all over? It is difficult to imagine a world exactly like it was before the coronavirus pandemic hit. And for many people – there has been a fundamental change in what makes up a normal way of life.
So much has gone on and so much more has changed – worldwide. Unlike our current administration, there is so much more to consider besides the reelection, the stock market, and saving oil companies. And I think most Americans are now realizing the magnitude of the changes that will have to take place if we succeed in getting through this crisis.
