Next wave of US states set to reopen as COVID-19 could push jobless rate to 16pc

Another wave of states prepared to ease coronavirus restrictions on US commerce this week, despite health experts warning there is still too little diagnostic testing, while the White House forecast a staggering jump in the nation's monthly jobless rate.

Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee were set to join several other states in reopening businesses without the means to screen systematically for infected people who may be contagious but asymptomatic, and to trace their contacts with others they might have exposed.

Many merchants have voiced ambivalence about returning to work absent the prerequisite public health measures authorities have advocated, reports Reuters.

"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,'" Royal Rose, 39, owner of a tattoo studio in Greeley, Colorado, told Reuters.

Rose said she was reopening her shop after closing a month ago, not because she wants to but because bills are piling up and she feels she has no choice.

Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina have already forged ahead to restart their economies following weeks of mandatory lockdowns that have thrown nearly one in six American workers out of their jobs.

Public health authorities say increasing human interactions and economic activity now - without the means to do so safely - will only backfire, sparking a new surge of infections just as social-distancing measures appear to be bringing coronavirus outbreaks under control.

Medical experts say strict adherence to business closures and stay-at-home orders imposed over the past several weeks by governors in 42 of 50 states have worked to level off rates of hospitalisations and admissions to intensive care units.

Still the number of known US infections climbed higher on Sunday, topping 960,000 as the number of lives lost to COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus, surpassed 54,700.

The continuing rise in the number of US cases has been attributed in part to increased diagnostic screening. But health authorities also warn that testing and contact tracing must be vastly expanded before shuttered businesses can be safely reopened on a wide-scale basis.