President Trump said Tuesday during a Fox News virtual town hall that he wants the country’s economy re-opened by Easter amid questions over how long people should stay home and businesses should remain closed to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Speaking from the Rose Garden alongside others on his coronavirus task force, Trump said he "would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter." The holiday this year lands on April 12.

Trump argued he doesn’t want “to turn the country off” and see a continued economic downfall from the pandemic. He also said he worries the U.S. will see "suicides by the thousands" if coronavirus devastates the economy.

Trump said during the interview: "We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don't turn the country off." 

The H1N1 Pandemic eventually killed 12,469 Americans according to CDC data. There was never a call to shut down American businesses. Between 2010 to 2019, there's been an average of at least 30,000+ deaths due to the normal flu annually. To be 100% precise you could check out the data on the USA that's been collected by the CDC.

Closing down businesses has never been done before and neither was trying to swab everyone possible. While highly contagious, COVID-19 isn't a killer virus as feared at the moment unless you generally fall into a tiny category of over being over 60 with preexisting conditions. It is not generally killing the general public en mass as feared. Hence, the reasoning for starting the conversation of reopening businesses.

The fear behind COVID-19 has been extraordinary because of the rate of infection. Yet beyond New York and perhaps California, which happen to be sanctuary States, the US appears to be doing well under the government's health guidelines. The death rate, thus far, hasn't hit the feared 3 to 5% of the population as some had feared or "guestimated."  

Apple closed all of their stores in the U.S. and around the world excluding China for two weeks and then updated that by stating "until further notice." That makes sense with President Trump now pointing to around Easter Sunday.

I'm sure that Apple, Silicon Valley and the millions of small businesses around the U.S. wants to get back to business while ensuring that their employees continue to follow the strict guidelines on distancing and washing hands and so forth along with individual company guidelines.

There has to be a balance between health and the economy and the conversation of reopening businesses in America around Eastern Sunday, started by President Trump this afternoon, is the first sign of when the public could reasonably expect things to get back to normal. Well, the new normal that is.

Lastly, Bloomberg reported this afternoon that Apple expects to start re-opening its retail stores in the first half of April on a staggered basis, according to a memo from Senior Vice President of People and Retail Deirdre O’Brien.