President Donald Trump on Monday optimistically declared that “it’s going to be a month of achievement” for the country even as he asked the extended strict social distancing guidelines for another month as the nation stares down the sober reality that 100-200 thousand Americans could die from the virus.

Days after President Trump said he hoped the country would be “opened up and raring to go” by Easter, he instead announced on Sunday an extension of federal guidance on social distancing through April, in a continued effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

President Trump on Friday signed a massive $2 trillion emergency spending bill into law, which policy makers hope will blunt some of the coronavirus epidemic’s economic fallout.

The House of Representatives voted Friday to approve a massive $2 trillion stimulus bill that policy makers hope will blunt the economic destruction of the coronavirus pandemic, sending the legislation to President Trump for enactment.

The microphones have been removed from the well of the House to guard against transmission of the coronavirus. Lawmakers who enter the chamber must clean their hands with sanitizer and enter through one door, then scrub again and leave through another, as if coming and going from an operating room.