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Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said Monday that more data should be collected to determine the proper time to begin reopening American businesses and warned of dire consequences if the economy were to remain shut down indefinitely.

"How exactly are we going to reopen? The answer is going to be data, data and more data," "The Ben Shapiro Show" host said.

"When the data starts to roll in, it's time to make some tough decisions," he added. "We're going to have to draw a middle line here. This will come to a point where the costs do outweigh the benefits."

President Trump told reporters Friday that the call about when to relax the federal government's coronavirus guidelines was "the biggest decision I've ever had to make."

"I want to get it open as soon as possible,” Trump told reporters at Friday's briefing with members of the White House task force. "This country was meant to be open and vibrant and great.”

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Many of the president's critics have taken issue with his focus on the economic impact of the pandemic -- but Shapiro defended Trump's characterization of the decision facing him.

"To pretend that even discussing the public policy is some kind of verboten sin is disgusting," Shapiro said. "Frankly. this is the biggest public policy decision that not only Trump is gonna have to make, but pretty much anybody is going to have to make. To pretend that there are no stakes on either side is idiocy of the highest order."

"To pretend that there are no stakes on either side is idiocy of the highest order." — Ben Shapiro

Shapiro said he is "optimistic" that officials will have enough data this week to answer many of the questions surrounding the shutdown and its attendant restrictions.

"We are going to have much more data to input into our decision-making model," he said. "Once we know the actual case fatality rate, then we as a society will have some decisions to make."

Last week, the outspoken conservative warned that capitalism is a risk of a "radical transformation" in America the longer the economy remains shut down.

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"In this case, where you have the largest government reaction in the history of the United States, the prospect of that being made into a permanent feature of the American landscape is pretty scary and it's one of the reasons why we should be looking to get out of this as fast as humanly possible," he said at the time.

Shapiro later took aim at the media for criticizing Trump amidst the global crisis, saying "if Trump is the first thing that comes to mind in the middle of a pandemic, I think that you are doing being human and being an analyst wrong.

"That is not the way you should be thinking about this stuff."