Trump Touts Task Force Change from Fighting Invisible Enemy to Opening Up the Country

WASHINGTON - President Trump is considering changing the Coronavirus Task Force's focus to "safety and opening up" the country. 

"I thought we could wind it down sooner, but I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down," said Trump.

Thirty-eight states have begun easing restrictions. In Texas, for example, Gov. Greg Abbott is allowing barbershops, salons, and other personal services to reopen this weekend despite seeing an increase in nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 cases across the Lone Star State in the last 24 hours. 

"Texas is fully capable of being able to handle the healthcare needs of everyone that contracts COVID-19," said Abbott. 

Illinois is taking a more conservative approach, opening the state region by region.

"There's so much pressure to get back to that normal, but the truth is we're still in a significant war with an Enemy," said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. 

But the invisible enemy's days could be numbered as pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and BioNTech launched human trials in the effort to create a new vaccine. 

"Because this is a phase 1 trial it is double-blinded and randomized so I'm not actually sure on my end if I got one of the vaccine candidates or if I had a placebo," said David Rach, a volunteer, and a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We're employing all the normal safety precautions."

Currently, there are more than 1.2 million confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in the US, and more than 70,000 have died from it. 

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