White House plans to disband virus task force
US President Donald Trump has confirmed the White House coronavirus task force will be winding down, with Vice-President Mike Pence suggesting it may be disbanded within weeks.
"We are bringing our country back," Mr Trump said throughout a visit to a mask-manufacturing factory in Arizona.
New confirmed infections each day in america currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000.
US health officials warn the virus may spread as businesses get started to reopen.
The US currently has 1.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections and a lot more than 70,000 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, which is tracking the pandemic.
What did President Trump say?
Throughout a visit to the plant in Phoenix after weeks holed up at the White House, Mr Trump told journalists: "Mike Pence and the duty force have done an excellent job, but we're now looking at a small amount of a different form, and that form is safety and opening. And we'll have a different group probably create for that."
The president - who wore safety goggles but no face mask during his tour of the facility - was asked if it had been "mission accomplished", and he said: "No, not at all. The mission accomplished is if it is over."
Critics have accused the president of sacrificing Americans' public health in his eagerness to reopen the united states economy before his re-election battle in November.
Acknowledging a human cost to the plans, Mr Trump told reporters: "I'm not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some persons be affected? Yes.
"Will some persons be influenced badly? Yes. But we must get our country open and we must obtain it open soon."
The president was also asked if White House task force professionals Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci would still be involved in efforts to handle the coronavirus.
"They will be and so will other doctors therefore will other authorities in the field," the president answered.
The once daily task force briefings have grown to be increasingly scarce since Mr Trump was widely condemned by the medical community last month after he pondered at the podium whether injecting bleach into persons might kill the virus.
What did the vice-president say?
Mr Pence previously Tuesday told reporters in a briefing that the duty force could soon be disbanded.
He said the Trump administration was "needs to consider the Memorial Day [late May] window, early June window as a period when we could get started to transition back again to having our agencies begin to manage, begin to control our national response in a far more traditional manner".
He said it was "a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country".
Mr Pence has led the duty force, which reports to the president and co-ordinates with medical institutes, political staff and state governors. The group also consulted medical authorities to formulate national guidelines on social distancing.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later tweeted that the president "will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening".
