Trudeau says Canada's economy won't reopen "for many more weeks"

Apr 15 2020, 4:29 pm

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that it will be “many weeks” before Canada even begins to reopen its economy.

He said that the main concern is that, if people head back to work too soon, it could cause another peak in COVID-19 cases.

“It will be extremely damaging both to how Canadians feel, but also to our economy. That’s why we are going to be extremely careful about any steps towards opening the economy,” Trudeau said.

“If we reopen too soon, everything were doing now might be for nothing. We are making sacrifices, we’re there for each other, we need to hold on still, and then once we’re ready, once we feel were through, once the experts are telling us that we can talk about reopening the economy a little bit, we will take very careful steps and do that.”

He also noted that once people are back to their jobs, there will be strict measures in place to ensure that potential coronavirus outbreaks are contained.

“When we are able to loosen the controls on social distancing and start to open our economy, massive rapid testing on a very wide scale basis will be an essential part of the vigilance we have to have,” he said during the press conference.

Trudeau also noted that there will need to be aggressive contact tracing and “extremely quick” responses to any future outbreaks following the initial peak and until a vaccine is created.

Chandler WalterChandler Walter

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