Trump extends U.S. social distancing guidelines until the end of April

President Donald Trump has extended federal social distancing guidelines to April 30. Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith joins the On The Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Jess Smith is our correspondent in Washington. She's got the latest on what's happening in DC. Jess.

JESSICA SMITH: Well, over the weekend President Trump announced he would be extending those social-distancing guidelines until April 30. You'll remember over the past couple of weeks President Trump has expressed that he really wanted to open up the economy. We've heard him say over and over again that he didn't want the cure to be worse than the disease, but yesterday he said he would extend those guidelines-- so urging Americans not to go to work, to stay home if they can, not to go to bars and restaurant, avoid nonessential travel. That will stay in place until the end of the month.

He had even floated Easter as a day that the economy could be back in business, but health officials had been telling him that opening up the economy too early would make the situation worse. At a briefing yesterday, health officials said even with these mitigation methods, with these social-distancing guidelines, the US could see up to 200,000 deaths. If the US did nothing, the worst-case scenario, that could be 2.2 million, according to the health officials at the briefing. So that grim guidance seems to be what changed the president's mind here.

He did say that he would hope by June 1 the US would be well on the way to recovery. We do expect him to release more details about the plans for the next 30 days sometime tomorrow. Adam.