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President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants the U.S. economy to “open” back up by Easter Sunday, despite expert warnings about the deadly threat of the coronavirus.

Easter is April 12, less than three weeks away.

Trump’s remarks in a Fox News “virtual town hall” event at the White House came as more states imposed extreme  measures, including shutting down businesses and ordering residents to stay home, to try to slow the spread of the disease.

“We’re opening up this incredible country. Because we have to do that. I would love to have it open by Easter,” Trump said.

“I would love to have that. It’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’d love to make it an important day for this. I would love to have the country opened up, and rarin’ to go by Easter.”

In a second interview with Fox that aired Tuesday afternoon, Trump said he offered the holiday as a deadline because “Easter’s a very special day for me.”

“Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full?” Trump asked. “You’ll have packed churches all over our country … I think it’ll be a beautiful time.”

Trump added that “I’m not sure that’s going to be the day,” but “that would be a beautiful thing.”

The number of people found to have COVID-19 has increased significantly in recent days, as testing kits have been made more available to states.

In the U.S., at least 46,500 cases of COVID-19, including 590 deaths have been confirmed, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Medical experts, including the Trump administration’s scientific point man in the crisis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have strongly advocated restrictions on people-to-people contact, saying it’s better to overreact now than to be sorry later.

“I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting,” he told NBC last week.

Fears about the coronavirus — and the impact of government containment efforts on businesses and workers — have prompted a dramatic surge in unemployment and have sent stocks spiraling down in recent weeks. 

The White House and leading lawmakers are working long hours on Capitol Hill to hash out the final details of a massive stimulus bill that would offer relief to those affected by the virus. The stimulus package is expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion and could include direct cash payments to Americans and around $350 billion in relief for small businesses.

Trump in the past few days has repeatedly expressed a desire to have the economy “reopen” by allowing businesses to “return to work.”

“The faster we go back, the better it’s going to be,” Trump said during the virtual town hall in the Rose Garden on Tuesday.

He and his top economic advisor, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, suggested Tuesday that the stimulus bill could provide the springboard for an economic revival.

After hemorrhaging value for weeks, stocks jumped higher Tuesday as lawmakers signaled a bipartisan deal was nearing and as Trump pushed to get workers back in stores within weeks.

The U.S., Trump said, can’t sustain the current trend of closing down business and commerce in entire states.

“We’re not built that way,” Trump said. “I don’t want the cure to be worse than the problem itself. … You can destroy a country this way.”

Trump also once again compared the coronavirus to more common dangers, such as flu and car accidents, in an apparent attempt to play down the risk posed by the new disease.

“We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off,” Trump said.

Few other countries are currently looking to loosen the strict steps being taken to slow the disease’s transmission. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for instance, announced on Tuesday a “total lockdown” for the country of 1.3 billion people.