Trump announces three-phase plan to reopen economy amid virus crisis
President Trump revealed his three part plan to reopen businesses and restore the economy. Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith shares the latest details.
Video Transcript
ADAM SHAPIRO: Jess Smith is in Washington to break down the president's proposal for the governors to reopen states and the national economy, Jess.
JESSICA SMITH: Yeah, Adam, the president released these non-binding guidelines yesterday. There are no specific dates in these guidelines, and the president says that governors are really going to be able to make their own decisions for what's best for their states. But the president did release these three phases of guidelines of how these states could start reopening their economies, kind of a road map here.
And, before these states can get to phase one, they should show two weeks of consistent declines in cases. And then they should make sure that hospitals are back to capacity, that they're not overwhelmed. And then they would get to phase one.
And what phase one would include is teleworking. And, if you can't telework, then workers should go back to the office in shifts. They should close common areas in offices and minimize nonessential travel. People should avoid groups of more than 10 people. In this phase one, schools would remain closed, but restaurants, movie theaters, places of worship, and gyms can reopen. They would just have to have pretty strict social distancing policies in place.
Then the states could move on to phase two if the states are showing no evidence of a rebound. They would still encourage teleworking and keeping common areas in offices closed. They would say to avoid groups of more than 50 people. Nonessential travel can resume. And then schools and camps could reopen, and bars could reopen, again, with social distancing measures in place.
And then you get to phase three. At that point, employers can resume unrestricted work. They could have visits to senior health care facilities if people are practicing good hygiene, but people are still supposed to exercise social distancing during this time frame. So this is a very gradual and slow plan here. And, even when you get to phase three, it's not exactly back to normal because you're waiting for the treatment, for a vaccine, Adam.
DANIEL ROBERTS: Jess, Dan here. I wanted to follow up and just ask you has the president or has the White House commented on the fact that, right now, the timing is all over the map. I mean, you have a few states that have already come out and extended their own stay-at-home guidelines past the most recent day that I think the president gave.
And then, related to that, the idea that some states could reopen before others, I imagine it would be only more difficult to deal with kind of the inconsistencies there if some states get up and running, and some are still completely shut down. It's-- it's hard to imagine how that works.
JESSICA SMITH: Yeah, well, I think that's why there are no dates in this plan that the gov-- that the president put out. He's leaving this decision to the governors because some states are, obviously, harder hit than others. And we are seeing these regional groups of governors come together and make these plans to reopen.
There has been some questions over-- over the travel restrictions of whether there would be restricted travel between states if that is something that should be considered. So I think there may be a little relief, actually, in the fact that this is more of a state by state decision than just a national guideline because, if you did have a national mandate, obviously, the situation in North Dakota is so much different than the situation in New York.
