Trump administration eager to reopen country as total COVID-19 cases top 1.25 mln

Over 20 states, mostly in the heartland, have partially reopened, allowing certain nonessential businesses to resume operations.

New Data released on Thursday showed that another 3.1 million people filed jobless claims in the week ending May 2, which showed a decrease of 677,000 from the prior week, the fifth weekly decline in a row, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (BLS).

More than 33 million Americans have now filed for initial jobless claims since the COVID-19 pandemic ripped through the economy.

The BLS report also showed that the four-week moving average, a method to iron out data volatility, decreased by 861,500 to reach 4.2 million.

Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, recently told Xinhua that the jobless claims data points to “a deceleration of the huge losses from early April.”

“The slowing losses indicate the bulk of job losses may be behind us,” Hicks said. “As the economy begins to re-open, these losses will continue to slow.”

According to a recent projection from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, partially reopening would increase GDP on June 30 by 1 percent year-on-year, to a 10.7 percent contraction. About 4.4 million jobs would be saved, although a total of 14.0 million jobs still will be lost between May 1 and June 30.

Fully reopening would boost GDP on June 30 by about 1.5 percentage points year-on-year compared with not reopening, the model showed. Almost all net job losses between May 1 and June 30, over 18 million, would be avoided.

The potential economic recovery following the reopening, however, doesn’t come without a price. According to the Wharton model, partially reopening would cause 45,000 additional deaths by June 30 relative to not reopening. Fully reopening would lead to an additional 233,000 deaths.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that he would not trade human lives for economic recovery of the state, saying “this is not a situation where you can go to the American people and say, ‘How many lives are you willing to lose to reopen the economy?'”

“We’ll figure out the dollars, and we’ll figure out the economic impact, but we’ll protect people in the meantime,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing.

New York has passed the peak of the epidemiological curve as key indicators show a steady trend of declining. The state is set to reopen some regions with less impact of COVID-19 on May 15, prioritizing the construction and manufacture sectors.

Cuomo also said no one in the state can be evicted for not paying rent till August 20, as many fell victim to the economic fallout caused by the pandemic.

The state will ban late payments or fees during the eviction moratorium, and will allow renters facing financial hardship to use their security deposit as payment and repay their security deposit over time.

“We are helping the landlords also, but on a human level I don’t want to see people and their children being evicted at this time, through no fault of their own,” he added.

The Empire State has reported over 327,000 COVID-19 cases and over 26,000 deaths, according to official figures.

Source: Xinhua