NEW YORK: Another wave of US states are preparing to lift COVID-19 restrictions this week despite the warnings of many public health experts as the White House sees this month's jobless rate hitting 16 per cent or higher.

Health experts say increased human interaction could spark a new wave of COVID-19 cases, the respiratory disease caused by a contagious coronavirus that has already killed more than 54,300 people in the US.



The US recorded 1,330 more COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to figures reported on Sunday night by Johns Hopkins University.

The country has an overall death toll of 54,841, with 964,937 confirmed infections, according to a tally by the Baltimore-based institution at 8.30 pm local time on Sunday.

Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other states beginning an experiment to reopen economies without the testing and contact-tracing infrastructure health experts say is needed to prevent a resurgence of infections, with lives in the balance.

Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina have already taken steps to restart their economies following a month of government-ordered lockdowns.



Those unprecedented restrictions resulted in a record 26.5 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since mid-March. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicted on Friday that the economy would contract at nearly a 40 per cent annual rate in the second quarter. Even next year, the CBO forecast the unemployment rate averaging above 10 per cent.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters the US jobless rate would likely hit 16 per cent or more in April.

"I think the next couple of months are going to look terrible," Hassett said on Sunday. "You're going to see numbers as bad as anything we've ever seen before."

Against a backdrop of scattered protests across the country calling for stay-at-home orders to be lifted, US cases topped 940,000 on Sunday after posting a record one-day increase on Friday.

New York and other states have extended restrictions to mid-May. New York reported 367 new deaths on Sunday, its lowest increase since Mar 30. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo said construction and manufacturing would be the first businesses to reopen and could restart after May 15 in the upstate region with certain precautions and if cases continue to decline.

READ: New York governor wants to see sports teams return, even without fans

Other states, mainly those with Republican governors, have taken a more aggressive approach.

Tennessee said it will allow restaurants to reopen on Monday. Mississippi's stay-at-home order expires the same day.

Montana, which reported three new cases on Sunday, is allowing businesses to reopen on Monday if they limit capacity and practice social distancing, while Minnesota will let some businesses restart on Monday, allowing 80,000 to 100,000 people in the industrial, manufacturing and office jobs to go back to work.

In Colorado, Democratic Governor Jared Polis has given the green light for retail curbside pickup to begin on Monday. Hair salons, barbershop and tattoo parlours can open on Friday, with retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters to follow.

Royal Rose is reopening her tattoo studio in Greenly, Colorado this week after closing a month ago, not because she wants to but because the bills are piling up and she says she has no choice.



"I would stay home if the government encouraged that, but they're not, they're saying 'Hey, the best thing to do is go back to work, even though it might be risky'," said Rose, 39, sitting inside her salon in a wood-sided building on a leafy street in the farming and oil town.

Rejecting the advice of top disease experts, the US state of Georgia allowed thousands of businesses to resume operations, from hairdressers to bowling alleys.

"How long are we supposed to imprison ourselves?" said 30-year-old Mackenzie Scharf, one of many in Georgia embracing the return to something resembling normalcy.

But the lifting of restrictions is not uniform across most states. For example, Denver extended stay-at-home orders to May 8 but city dwellers can drive to a nearby county for a haircut.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to resume business in the world's biggest economy, even as medical advisors have cautioned against easing lockdown too soon or too fast.

The US leader faced a fresh volley of criticism after suggesting that coronavirus could be treated by shining ultraviolet light inside patients' bodies, or with injections of household disinfectant.

He lashed out at the media on Twitter, accusing journalists of posing hostile questions, and suggested his daily coronavirus briefings were not worth his time.

"They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!" Trump wrote.



Eight states never ordered residents to stay at home - Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Several opinion polls have shown a bipartisan majority of Americans want to remain at home to protect themselves from the coronavirus, despite the impact to the economy.



Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram