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White House Targeting 9 States to Start Reopening US Economy

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - The White House is targeting nine U.S. states that have
   recorded the fewest number of confirmed coronavirus cases to be among
   the first to reopen their economies.

   Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House virus task force coordinator, said
   Wednesday night that the nine states all have fewer than 1,000
   confirmed cases of the coronavirus and are recording fewer than 30 new
   cases a day.

   The coronavirus has ravaged the United States and wreaked havoc with
   its economy, leading to more than 22 million layoffs of workers in the
   last four weeks.

   President Donald Trump is pushing to reopen the country's world-leading
   economy as quickly as possible, with May 1 his target date for parts of
   the country that have not sustained the impact from the coronavirus as
   the hardest hit regions, such as the New York metropolitan area.

   Birx did not name the nine states, but her reference to the number of
   coronavirus cases appears to identify the states as among the least
   populated in the country, extending from the Atlantic coastal state of
   Maine to the Pacific island state of Hawaii. The seven others are
   Vermont and West Virginia in the eastern U.S., Arkansas in the southern
   part of the country, Nebraska and North Dakota in the Midwest and
   Montana and Wyoming in the West.

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