President Donald Trump says it will be safe to reopen the country when "we can say we have to be on that down side of that slope."

"We can do it in phases, go to some areas where — you know, some areas are much less affected than others," he said at a Wednesday coronavirus task force briefing. "But it would be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country."

CNN reported earlier Wednesday that discussions are underway at the task force level about how to reopen the US economy.

Trump said he believes the US is "ahead of schedule" in efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus.

"You hate to say it too loudly because all of a sudden things don't happen. But I think we will be sooner rather than later," Trump said.

"But we'll be sitting down with the professionals. We'll be sitting down with many different people making a determination," he went on. "And those meetings will start taking place fairly soon."

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