White House Coronavirus Task Force to stay for now, says Trump

The White House Coronavirus Task Force is going to stay for now and new members would be added to it, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, a day after he had said it would be closed down.

"We are keeping the task force for a period of time. I look forward to when we can close the task force, because then the job will be essentially hopefully over," said Trump, who had established the task force, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, in January.

"The task force has done a great job and I had a meeting yesterday, I had a meeting this morning probably even more importantly, and so we will be leaving the task force indefinitely," the president told reporters a day after he and Pence said it would be closed by next month.

But there was a general opposition to this move.

"I thought we could wind it down sooner, but I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday, when I started talking about winding it down. I would get calls from very respected people, saying I .