Pence: Country Might Be ‘Largely Past’ COVID-19 By Early June

The COVID-19 outbreak in the United States could be finished before the Memorial Day holiday, Vice President Mike Pence said in a broadcast interview. Slightly below 50,000 Americans have died because of the coronavirus as of February, Bloomberg reported.

“I truly do believe that if we all continue to do that kind of social distancing and other guidance broadly from federal and state officials, that we’re going to put this coronavirus in the past,” Pence said on Geraldo Rivera’s show Friday (April 24). “I believe by early June we’re going to see our nation largely past this epidemic.”

Over 869,000 instances of the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus have occurred in the United States, which is said to be the location of the biggest outbreak in the world. Information assembled by Johns Hopkins University indicated that there were north of 29,000 instances reported on Thursday.

In separate news, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that while he is sensitive to worries regarding rising federal debt, it’s necessary to spend money to rescue the economy as the battle against coronavirus continues.

Mnuchin told Fox Business Network on Wednesday (April 22). “The good news is interest rates are very low so the cost of carrying the debt to the American taxpayer is quite low.”

Mnuchin continued, “This is a war, and we need to win this war and we need to spend what it takes to win the war. We are all sensitive to the economic impacts of putting on debt and that’s something that the president is reviewing with us very carefully.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, however, said per published reports that Congress should “push the pause button” on economic-relief packages to come and mull the possible impact on federal debt.

Washington, D.C.-based public policy research organization the Cato Institute said the $24 trillion in federal debt is expected to increase by $6 trillion due to money spent to help out businesses and states, among others.