U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams says he expects to continue recommending Americans follow social distancing guidelines into May.
Adams appeared Wednesday on Today after President Trump recently extended the federal government's social distancing guidelines to April 30. Trump had previously floated the idea of the country being "opened up" by Easter on April 12.
But Savannah Guthrie probed Adams about the likelihood of the guidelines needing to be extended again, asking him if it's remotely possible that the White House would fully pull back and say Americans no longer need to social distance after 30 days. This is indeed not likely, Adams suggested.
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"In my opinion, I think that in 30 days, we will still be telling the country in general that you need to practice these measures," Adams said. "But in 30 days, some places may not need to have a shelter-in-place anymore. So again, we'll start to ease this in 30 days, I think, in some places, but in some places, we'll be ramping it up. We'll follow the data."
Upon announcing the extension of the federal social distancing guidelines, Trump predicted that "by June 1st, we will be well on our way to recovery," and "a lot of great things will be happening."
Adams also said in the interview that because "everyone is on a different place on their curve," some states are "going to need to continue social distancing" after 30 days, while others "may be able to relax some of their recommendations earlier."
The surgeon general additionally addressed the fact that numerous states have not issued stay-at-home orders including Florida, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently saying Trump "has not recommended" that he do so. But Adams on Today described the federal social distancing guidelines as "a national stay-at-home order." Brendan Morrow
