US President Donald Trump looks on during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 3, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

US President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind the formation of a second coronavirus task force designated to prepare plans for reopening the country’s economy as the flu-like pathogen continues to take its toll across the United States.

Trump expressed the support on Saturday when he was asked about his affirmative response earlier in the day to a tweet by former White House press secretary Dana Perino who had floated the idea of a second task force focusing on the US economy.

I think we need a 2nd task force assembled at the direction of POTUS to look ahead to reopening of the economy, Perino said. Made up of a nonpartisan/bipartisan mix of experts across industry sectors, so that we have their recommendations & plan - let 1st task force focus on crisis at the moment.

The US president hailed the suggestion in a tweet, saying, Good idea Dana!

Thinking about it, getting a group of people and we have to open our country, Trump later told reporters. You know, I had an expression, the cure can’t be worse than the problem itself. Right? I started by saying that and I continue to say it. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. We got to get our country open.

The latest jobs report released on Friday offered just a glimpse of how the coronavirus crisis is damaging the economy.

Non-farm payrolls dropped by 701,000 jobs in March, according to data by the Labor Department. This comes after data released Thursday that showed a record-breaking 6.6 million new jobless claims last week.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to cause mayhem in the US, with the overall death toll exceeding 8,400 and the confirmed cases standing at more than 312,000. The Trump administration has come under fire from medical experts and Democrats for downplaying the threat and mishandling the crisis.

The task force suggestion comes as Trump has over the past week been trying to rush open the US economy, even giving an initial open date of mid-April.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned last week that the global pandemic could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans, infecting millions of others if the social distancing guidelines were prematurely scratched.

He also called Trump’s desire to get businesses and Americans back to work by Easter an aspirational projection.

In a briefing on Saturday, Dr. Fauci reiterated that the social distancing guidelines have been working and are an important tool to stopping the spread of the deadly virus.

Viruses transmit from people to people. When people are separated from each other the virus does not transmit - it doesn’t go anywhere and that’s the reason why something as simple as the physical separation... that’s our most important tool, Fauci said Saturday.

But this is what we have to do. As sobering and as difficult as this is, what we are doing is making a difference so we really need to continue to do that, he added.

The coronavirus, which causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19, jumped from wildlife to people in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and is currently affecting more than 200 countries across the globe. It has so far affected more than 1,225,000 people and killed over 66,000, according to a running count by worldometers.info.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

SOURCE: PRESS TV