MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th March, 2020) US President Donald Trump will be presented with all the available data in order to decide whether to lift measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease and re-open the country's borders and economy, Vice President Mike Pence said on Sunday morning, adding that the decision will be taken when it is responsible to do so.
On Tuesday, Trump stated that he wanted the US to be re-open by Easter, which would mean the lifting of self-isolation guidelines and restrictions on international travel.
"While the president has said that he'd like to open the country up in weeks, not months, we're going to be bringing that data forward to him," Pence said during an appearance on the Fox news television channel.
The vice president stated that while the US government was in a hurry to get the country operating as normal, anti-coronavirus measures could only be lifted once it was responsible to do so.
"We want to open our country up as soon as we can responsibly do that," Pence added.
Earlier on Sunday morning, Trump tweeted that a quarantine would not be imposed on the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Instead, only a travel advisory would be issued.
On March 12, Trump suspended all passenger air travel between the European Union's Schengen Area and the United States. This ban was later widened to include the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been more than 122,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States and over 2,000 deaths from the disease. More than 500 coronavirus fatalities have been confirmed in New York City alone.
