Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public-health officials are warning Republican leaders against ending coronavirus-containment measures to restart the economy, The Washington Post reported.

On Sunday night and Monday morning, Trump went on a Twitter tear, urging the US economy to go back to business as usual as soon as next week.

The Post reported that Trump's main motivation for wanting to restart parts of the US economy stemmed from his concern over how economic decline would hurt his reelection prospects in November.

Governors and other state-level leaders are also saying that things will only get worse before they get better as states take aggressive action to limit business activity, travel, and public gatherings.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force, and other public-health officials are warning Republican leaders against ending coronavirus-containment measures to restart the economy, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

On Sunday night and Monday morning, Trump went on a Twitter tear, urging the US economy to go back to business as usual as soon as next week. His tweets put him on a collision course with states and public-health experts who say the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak is yet to come.

As of Monday afternoon, over 40,000 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, and there have been 485 deaths. There are more than 20,000 cases in the state of New York alone.

The coronavirus outbreak has wreaked unprecedented havoc on the US economy. Entire industries have nearly come to a standstill, the stock market has tumbled, and unemployment claims have surged as millions of Americans find themselves out of work or with severely reduced hours.

Several Republican officials and conservative media personalities have also joined the calls to reduce social-distancing and stay-at-home orders so that workers in key industries can start going back to work and give the economy a boost. While the travel and hospitality industries were initially hit hardest by COVID-19, millions of other workers in food service, entertainment, and other sectors of the economy are losing their jobs.

The Post reported that Trump's main motivation for wanting to restart parts of the US economy as soon as possible stemmed from his concern over how skyrocketing unemployment and economic decline would hurt his reelection prospects in November. Trump is "fixated" on the declining stock market and "chafing" at the expectation that much of the country will be shut down until early summer.

But The Post said Fauci and other top public-health officials were sounding the alarm to officials within the Trump administration and members of Congress alike that the US needs to see greater social distancing and higher rates of people staying at home in the coming weeks — not less — to stem the rates of infection and reduce the pressure on already overwhelmed US hospital system.

On Sunday, Trump wrote, "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF," adding that at the end of a 15-day period of social distancing set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that began on March 16, "WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!"

Trump then proceeded to retweet several accounts, spreading misinformation about the dangers and severity of the virus.

One tweet said, "We The People are smart enough to keep away from others if we know that we are sick or they are sick!" Another Twitter user wrote: "Correct. 15 days, then we keep the high risk groups protected as necessary and the rest of us go back to work."

As public-health experts such as Fauci have stressed, the highly contagious virus can be spread by people who are otherwise healthy, asymptomatic, and not even aware they are sick, which makes social distancing an imperative public-health policy at the moment.

In an interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie on Friday, Fauci threw cold water on the idea that life could go back to normal in a week.

"If you look at the trajectory of the curves of outbreaks in other areas, it's at least going to be several weeks," Fauci said. "I cannot see that all of a sudden, next week or two weeks from now, it's going to be over. I don't think there's a chance of that. I think it's going to be several weeks."

At least one Republican member of Congress, Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, agreed with Trump's calls to restore the economy, bemoaning the "businesses closing" and "unemployment soaring" and asking, "Which is worse, the illness or our 'fix'? Americans stand up to challenges. Don't succumb to fear! Trust in God."

The Post reported that other prominent Republicans, including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have also expressed interest in restarting some portions of the economy.

And Larry Kudlow, the chairman of the National Economic Council, said in a Monday Fox News appearance that "the president is right."

"The cure can't be worse than the disease," Kudlow added. "And we're going to have to make some difficult trade-offs."

Governors and other state-level leaders are also saying that things will only get worse before they get better as states take aggressive action to limit business activity and shut down gathering spaces.

"We are still in the relative calm before the storm. You are going to see the number of infections, the number of cases, increase dramatically. You are going to see an overcapacity of our health system," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a Monday press conference.

"Once we get through that, we'll focus like a laser on the economy," he added.