WASHINGTON – Indiana Republican Rep. Trey Hollingsworth said Tuesday that sending Americans back to work at the risk of falling ill from coronavirus is the "lesser of these two evils" compared with the tanking economy.

Speaking in an interview on radio-station WIBC, Hollingsworth acknowledged what scientists are saying about the impact of COVID-19.

"But certainly the social scientists are telling us about the economic disaster that is going on," he said. "Our GDP is supposed to be down 20% alone this quarter. It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say it is the lesser of these two evils.

"That is our responsibility and to abdicate that is to insult the Americans that voted us into office.”

He emphasized that the best decision for a majority of Americans is "to get Americans back to work, to get Americans back to their businesses."

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President Donald Trump had suggested May 1 as a possible date for at least beginning the process of restarting large segments of the economy.

However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that the U.S. is probably not going to be ready to reopen the economy on that proposed timeline.

Fauci told the Associated Press that the May 1 date is “a bit overly optimistic” for certain areas of the country.

Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, and two days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised Americans to avoid gatherings of 50 people to limit the spread of the virus. Over the next three weeks, restrictions tightened, the numbers of infections and deaths from the disease soared, and more than 15 million Americans lost their jobs.

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As of Tuesday, the pandemic has claimed more than 25,000 lives across the nation, and there are almost 600,000 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Hollingsworth's office provided USA TODAY with a clarifying comment later Tuesday, saying, “It’s hyperbolic to say that the only choices before us are the two corner solutions: no economy or widespread casualties. We can use the best of biology and economics to enable as much of the economy to operate as possible while we work to minimize disease transmission.”

Contributing: David Jackson, USA TODAY; Samuel Stebbins, 24/7 Wall Street