Parts of the U.S. may be ready in May to ease emergency measures taken against the coronavirus pandemic but there's no universal "light switch" to flip on, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
"It could probably start at least in some ways maybe next month," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
"We are hoping by 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? If so, do it,'" he said.
Fauci said there's "not going to be a light switch that we say, OK, it is now June, July, or whatever _ click _ the light switch goes back on."
Separately, Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said "the safety and welfare of the American people" has to come first.
Members of the White House coronavirus task force "are really looking at this from a balanced approach," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press," despite President Donald Trump's hope that stringent measures can start to be removed in some fashion on May 1.
"There is an urgency around this, but I have to not received political pressure to have FDA make one decision versus another," Hahn said.
