Trump's May 1 grand U.S. reopening aspirations are running into a wall of insufficient testing, PPE

President Trump is expected to announce new guidelines Thursday encouraging some states to lift social distancing rules quickly, perhaps even before his May 1 aspirational goal post. Trump's health advisers and many of the business leaders on his new "Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups" agree the U.S. won't be ready to reopen on that schedule, The Wall Street Journal reports.

There seems to be a growing consensus about what needs to happen before the lockdowns are eased: A lot more testing, ample personal protective equipment (PPE), and effective contact tracing, for starters. "We can't move into the next phase of response before we are able to understand where this virus is, who has it, and to make sure to isolate cases," Crystal Watson at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security tells USA Today. The U.S. has conducted about 3 million tests, total, while some experts say tens of millions will be needed each week to safely manage a post-lockdown workforce.

Trump's conference calls Wednesday with business leaders — many of whom only learned they were on Trump's economic revival councils when he read their names on TV — produced little of substance, and no follow-up calls were scheduled, the Journal reports. One top executive described the call to Politico as a "s--t show," while another CEO said Trump needs to "stop talking about turning the economy back on and start talking about making people feel safe, things that are happening around testing and the health care system."

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Even if the U.S. procures enough coronavirus tests, lifting restriction is up to individual governors, who are making their own gradual plans. "The notion that there's a control room in the West Wing and this group will gather around the president and say 'Go ahead press the button, sir, we're going to restart' — that's not how the U.S. economy works," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, chief economist for President George W. Bush, tells the Journal.