“THE CURE CANNOT BE WORSE (by far) THAN THE PROBLEM!” Trump tweeted prior to his appearance on Fox News, echoing a view that has gained traction among White House allies.
Some conservative leaders, for instance, warned Pence on Wednesday that prolonged business closures and layoffs could do more to damage the health of American workers and business owners than the virus itself.
“There’s stress, there’s anxiety. People can wind up having a heart attack, committing suicide, turning to drug use. There are a lot of unintended consequences when people move into economic distress,” Martin said, noting that she and others voiced these concerns during their conversation with the vice president.
So far, the administration has declined to specify what guidance, if any, the federal government might issue or roll back to bridge the 13-day gap between the end of the administration's "15 Days to Slow the Spread"
initiative, which wraps up at the end of the weekend, and Easter, which falls on April 12.
“There weren’t specifics,” Kristan Hawkins, head of the anti-abortion group Students for Life, said of the conference call with Pence, adding that she was concerned about the infection rate of Covid-19 — the disease caused by the virus — and the potential risks of lifting social-distancing guidelines prematurely.
“I’m not going to even feel personally comfortable lifting my own self-quarantine until we start seeing more data and some of these experimental treatments are proven to be effective,” Hawkins said. “I think there are going to people like me who, for a long time, are going to be wary of being in crowds — of being on airplanes.”