Public health officials on Sunday discussed the possibility of partially reopening parts of the economy from government-mandated lockdowns as soon as next month – but they cautioned that it won't be as simple as flipping a switch, as U.S. coronavirus infection and death totals continue to climb.

As of Sunday morning, there are more than 530,000 confirmed infections in the United States – accounting for roughly 30% of the more than 1.8 million people infected around the world. More than 20,000 Americans and more than 110,000 people globally have died.

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The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. climbed by nearly 200,000 over the course of the past week, as the infection spreads and public health officials race to scale up testing efforts. But White House officials are pushing to reopen the economy as quickly as possible, given the catastrophic economic damage that has unfolded by shuttering nonessential businesses across the country.

More than 16 million Americans filed initial unemployment claims during the final two weeks of March and in the first week of April. Gross domestic product numbers during April, May and June are expected to be among the worst in modern history. Some estimates see the unemployment rate climbing as high as 30%.

President Donald Trump initially hoped to reopen the economy as soon as this weekend. That target proved unrealistic, so the administration has now set its sights on relaxing isolation and distancing guidelines in May. During an appearance Sunday morning on CNN's "State of the Union," Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a partial May reopening could be possible in some parts of the country. But he warned it would have to be done on a rolling basis – and that some particularly hard-hit parts of the country may need to wait longer.

"It is not going to be a light switch that we say 'OK, it is now June or July or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on.' It is going to be depending on where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you've already experienced and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced," he said, stressing that a reopening of the economy would not be "one-size-fits-all."

"Obviously, New York is going through a terrible ordeal. It's going to be very different than Arkansas," he said.

Fauci's remarks were echoed on Sunday by Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. During Hahn's appearance on ABC's "This Week," Hahn stressed that an economic reopening would depend in large part on testing availability but that the beginning of May remains the target for the Trump administration.

"It is a target, and obviously we're hopeful about that target. But I think it's just too early to be able to tell that," he said.

Health experts have cautioned, however, that a premature reopening would send infection totals soaring, effectively nullifying the social distancing measures that millions of Americans have been exercising for weeks. May has been viewed by some experts as an optimistic, perhaps unrealistic, target for reopening – especially given limited testing and contact tracing capabilities throughout much of the country.

Oxford Economics predicts social distancing measures could remain in place into mid-June. And even then, health officials worry about the possibility of a second wave of infections sweeping across the country.

"We are hoping that at the end of the month, we can look around and say, 'OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on?'" Fauci said. "If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down."

Fauci was also asked about a New York Times report that indicated the Trump administration was slow to act to control the spread of the virus – having known about the possibility of a pandemic-level event for far longer than the administration has suggested.

When asked to confirm whether he and other top domestic health experts concluded as far back as mid-February that the country would have to adopt strict social distancing measures – an idea the Trump administration didn't publicly embrace until mid-March – Fauci responded: "It is what it is."

"We look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it's not. But it is what it is. We are where we are right now," he said, indicating that one could "logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and started mitigation earlier, you would have saved lives."