William Cummings | USA TODAY

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the White House would be extending its social distancing guidelines through April 30, from an initial 15-day timeline when they were implemented on March 16.

“The peak in death rate is likely to hit in two weeks,” Trump said. “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.”

The announcement comes after Trump said last week he hoped to open up the country by Easter, which falls on April 12, saying it was a “beautiful” time to ease up on the social distancing guidelines that are aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus to prevent overwhelming the health care system, but that have hurt the economy.

Trump said Sunday that the White House task force would be sharing further data and finalized plans on Tuesday, and that he expects by June 1, “ we will be well on our way to recovery.”

The guidelines call on Americans to avoid social gatherings involving groups of 10 or more, to stay away from public spaces like restaurants and bars, to avoid discretionary travel and to practice increased hygiene. They also asked Americans to stay home if they are sick and for older individuals to stay away from other people.

When asked by USA TODAY about floating Easter as a possible date to lift the social-distancing restrictions, Trump dismissed his previous deadline as "an aspiration."

Associated Press, USA TODAY

"We had an aspiration of Easter but when you hear these kind of numbers and you hear the potential travesty," Trump said, "we don't want to have a spike up."

Trump also said that Easter could hit a peak death toll before the number of cases begin to decrease.

"We've gone through too much. So that was an aspiration," he said.

-- Jeanine Santucci and Courtney Subramanian

Trump praises General Motors, reversing course after ordering ventilator production

President Donald Trump on Sunday said General Motors was doing a “fantastic job” of producing ventilators to treat patients with the coronavirus, in a reversal from his clear agitation with the company last week.

"I don't think we have to worry about General Motors now,” Trump said at his press briefing.

On Friday, Trump had chastised GM, complaining on Twitter that the company had failed to meet earlier agreements to make breathing ventilators and was reducing the number it said it could produce and increasing the price.

GM responded shortly after Trump's Twitter rant on Friday and said it would begin building ventilators in April.

Even so, on Friday afternoon Trump ordered his administration to use its authority under the Defense Production Act to force GM to expedite government contracts to build ventilators. The act allows the government to require private companies to accept contracts and prioritize delivery of materials needed for emergency response. Trump said he did not want to use the Defense Production Act, but felt the company was dragging its feet.

Trump said Sunday that other companies have “come into line.”

-Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press

Trump wants ‘fast approval’ for face mask sterilization technology

President Donald Trump said he wants the Food and Drug Administration to move quickly on the approval of a method to sterilize face masks so that they can be reused by health care professionals, as the demand for face masks and other personal protective equipment goes up.

Trump said he had spoken with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday morning, and that he had been working on it since he heard from the governor.

"I got involved and the FDA is now involved. We're trying to get a fast approval for the sterilization of masks,” Trump said Sunday at his press briefing. “That would be a tremendous difference. That would be really helpful."

The FDA on Saturday partially approved a new decontamination system by Columbus-based research nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute. But the FDA limited use of the system to just 10,000 N95 air filter masks — a small portion of what Battelle says it can clean, 160,000 on two systems in Ohio — per day at Battelle's Columbus headquarters instead of several sites planned across the country.

DeWine said he was "quite angry" at the FDA's decision and that FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephan Hahn assured him it would be "cleared up" later in the day. DeWine said Trump was supportive of the push and told him "Look, I’m moving; I’ll get this done."

--Jackie Borchardt and Bobby Nightengale, Cincinnati Enquirer

Trump: 'Something's going on' with respect to lack of masks and ventilators

President Donald Trump, whose administration has been accused of slow delivery of medical supplies to states, seemed to suggest Sunday that some states and facilities are hoarding face masks and ventilators in the fight against the coronavirus,

He provided no evidence for these claims.

"Something's going on, and you ought to look into it," Trump told reporters during a news conference while discussing a lack of face masks in New York. "Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door?"

At another point, Trump wondered if people were hoarding ventilators, and later said "it may be worse than hoarding."

Again, he provided no evidence, except to say, "I hear stories like that all the time."

New York and other states have said there are shortages of personal protective equipment, ventilators and other items needed to treat the upsurge in coronavirus cases.

Governors have also said that the Trump administration's efforts to help deliver supplies have been haphazard at best.

Trump's claims about hospital hoarding drew criticism on social media.

"It’s not that he is dumb," tweeted Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director. "He is knowingly ignorant."

– David Jackson

Pelosi: $2 trillion coronavirus package 'just a down payment' on fight against outbreak

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that despite the $2 trillion economic package signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday, the federal government has "to do more" to combat the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 Americans and called for another piece of legislation to address the remaining needs.

"I think the bill was just a down payment," Pelosi told CNN's "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper. "We have to pass another bill that goes toward meeting the need more substantially than we have."

She said new action was required to increase funding for states and hospitals, as well as to address the reported shortages of personal protective equipment for medical professionals. She also called for an expansion of family medical leave, a guarantee that those who get tested have their doctor visit covered and protections for workers' pensions, among other issues.

COVID-19 spreads in prisons: Coronavirus claims first federal prisoner; 49-year-old drug offender dies in Louisiana

"The list goes on about what we have to do," she said, citing the "self-evident" need for additional resources in the states.

Pelosi also tore into Trump for his handling of the outbreak, saying his initial response cost lives.

"His denial at the beginning was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where it's needed is deadly," she said.

And she pushed back against Trump's suggestion of beginning to ease the social-distancing meant to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease in areas where the outbreak was less severe. She said the aim should be to "prevent more loss of life, rather open things up."

"I don't know what the purpose of that is," she said of Trump's idea of easing restrictions. "I don't know what the scientists are saying to him."

She called for an inquiry into Trump's response to the virus after the crisis has passed.

"What did he know and when did he know it? That's for an after-action review," she said. "Let's review later what we should have done when. Let's now just stop doing the same thing, which is to deny and delay."

"But as the president fiddles, people are dying. And we just have to take every precaution."

Ex-FDA chief: Don't ease restrictions until 14 straight days of reduction in cases

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday that the White House should not ease its social distancing guidelines aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus "until you see sustained reduction in the number of cases for 14 days."

"That's the point at which you can contemplate lifting some of these measures that we have in place right now, some of these very aggressive social distancing measures," he said in a CBS News'"This Week" interview. "But you need to do it very gradually."

Gottlieb - who served as President Donald Trump's FDA head from May 2017 to March 2019 - said it was also necessary to have "the ability to test the population widely" before easing the restrictions "so you can determine who has the infection, who doesn't, and use case-based interventions, where you isolate individual people."

Gottlieb said the principal reason that testing is limited is no longer a lack of testing kits, but lack of basic components such as swabs that are needed to conduct the tests.

"The manufacturing supply chain for those components is very limited right now," he said.

President Donald Trump has said he hopes the restrictions can be eased in the coming weeks because of the economic havoc they have caused and he has floated the idea of lifting them in regions where the number of cases is low.

The current social distancing guidelines issued by the White House were for a 15-day period, which expires Tuesday. Trump, who has said he hopes people can begin to return to work as soon as Easter, is weighing changes before issuing new recommendations.

"It's too early to lift these measures," said Gottleib, who predicted the White House will end up extending the existing guidelines for another two weeks.

"April is going to be a hard month," he said. "Come May, we'll be coming out of this and we'll be able to contemplate starting to lift some of these measures as we see the epidemic curve come down."

— William Cummings

Kudlow defends 'we have contained this' claim

Larry Kudlow, top economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on Sunday defended the claim he made a month ago that the administration had successfully contained the coronavirus, which has since killed more than 2,000 Americans.

"Look, I’m as good as the facts are. At the time I made that statement, the facts were contained," Kudlow told ABC News "This Week" host Martha Raddatz. "The president has just put the travel restrictions on China, and a lot of people agreed with me. In fact, at the time, a lot of people thought that the flu was worse than this virus."

The former CNBC host said that "as soon as the facts changed" the administration "changed our whole posture and our whole strategy, and we've gone full bore."

In a Feb. 25 interview on CNBC, Kudlow said of the outbreak, "We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”

"I don’t think it’s going to be an economic tragedy at all," he added, though he conceded, "There will be some stumbles.”

Despite Kudlow's claim that many agreed with his belief that the virus had been contained, his comment came the same day that Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters that widespread contagion was already inevitable.

"It’s not a question of if but rather a question of when, and how many, people in this country will have severe illness," Messonnier said a month ago.

— William Cummings

Trump administration begins airlift of medical supplies

The Trump administration is airlifting medical supplies from Asia and other parts of the world to areas of the United States hardest hit by the coronavirus with a series of daily flights that began on Sunday, the White House said.

A plane carrying more than 10 million surgical gloves and 130,000 N-95 masks, as well as other equipment, landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sunday from Shanghai. It was the first of what is expected to be approximately 20 such flights over the course of the next several weeks.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said in a statement that the flights would bring "massive amounts of masks" and other gear to "better equip our health care workers on the front lines and to better serve the American people."

Officials said the goal is to expedite the shipment of medical supplies, bringing equipment into the country within two to three days rather than 20 to 40 days normally required to ship by sea.

The first flight contained 130,000 N-95 masks, nearly 1.8 million surgical face masks and gowns, more than 10.3 million gloves and more than 70,000 thermometers, the White House said.

The effort comes as state and local officials say hospitals are running shortages of medical equipment needed by front-line health workers dealing with the pandemic. The majority of the supplies will be distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with other gear headed to nursing homes and other high-risk areas.