Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that public health officials could consider measures to reopen the country next month, depending on the status of the outbreak in different states and cities.

Though there were some indications that the outbreak was "starting to turn the corner," any reopening of normal life across the country would occur in a "gradual" or "rolling" reentry, Fauci said.

President Donald Trump's administration has touted encouraging statistics from across the country as a sign much of the US economy could soon be reopened, but the president and public health officials have remained cautious.

Despite encouraging numbers from hospitalizations and intubations that suggest part of the outbreak had begun to "level off," Fauci said that "there is always the possibility" for a resurgence in the fall.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the country could begin reopening in some aspects as early as next month, but the response will be different across the country.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the top experts on President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday after what many officials cast as the worst week yet in the US coronavirus outbreak, saying he had noticed reasons for "cautious optimism."

"[We knew] this was going to be a really bad week with regard to deaths," Fauci said, adding that despite record-high death counts in hard-hit places like New York City, there were indications that part of the outbreak had begun to "level off" from statistics like hospitalizations and intubations that are "starting to turn the corner."

There's "cautious optimism that we are seeing that decrease," Fauci said, pointing to other countries that "turned the corner then saw sharp decline" before considering reopening public places.

Any return to normal life in the US would occur in a "gradual" or "rolling" reentry, Fauci said.

"You want to make sure you don't do something prematurely and precipitously at the same time pay attention to need to try and get back to normal," Fauci said. "It's not going to be a light switch that we say, okay it is now June, July, or whatever and the light switch goes back on."

Though the response will not be "one size fits all"," Fauci said that officials were hopeful reopening measures could "probably start at least in some ways next month," depending on the status of the outbreak in different states and cities.

Still, Fauci said despite hopes for a reopen, "there is always the possibility, as we get into next fall and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound."

The resurgence would hopefully be met with reliable testing, surveillance, and responses like effective drugs to make it "a totally different ball game" from the initial outbreak, Fauci said, but it's unclear if activities like voting will be affected by the virus.

—State of the Union (@CNNSotu) April 12, 2020

Fauci's comments came the same morning as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn told ABC's "This Week" that he expects the peak of the outbreak to come soon.

"The models do show that we are very close to the peak," Hahn said. "This has been a really fast-moving outbreak, so we really have to take this day by day."

Though Hahn cautioned that "it's too early to be able to tell" plans for a specific date with regard to Trump's May 1 target to reopen the country, but said officials "see a light at the end of the tunnel."