OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a message for anyone clamoring for the economy to be reopened: "it's not happening yet."

The prime minister made the comment during his Wednesday press conference on the front steps of Rideau Cottage. He explained that the government has to be "extremely careful" with any steps it takes towards letting Canadians go back to their offices and allowing non-essential businesses to reopen.

"It seems like over the past days, people have are talking about 'oh, we'll re-open this. We'll do this. We'll reopen that.' It's not happening yet. If we reopen too soon, everything we’re doing now might be for nothing," Trudeau warned, referring to the physical distancing measures now in place.

For the time being, the prime minister said Canadians need to "hold on, still."

"And then, once we're ready, once we feel we’re through, once the experts are telling us that we can talk about reopening the economy a little bit, we will take very careful steps in doing that," Trudeau said.

He added that it'll be some time before we get there.

"In order to get to that point, we need to continue doing what we are doing now for many more weeks," Trudeau said.

In the meantime, the government has pushed to try to keep businesses afloat as they shutter their doors to help quell the spread of COVID-19. In its financial aid package, the government has created loan programs that will give qualifying small businesses loans of up to $40,000, as well as wage subsidies to try to prevent staff layoffs.

Despite these efforts, COVID-19 has hit the economy hard. The Bank of Canada has warned that the economic downturn COVID-19 has prompted will be the worst on record, and that depending on the effectiveness of current measures, it's possible a "significant number" of businesses will close permanently.

In a bid to push back on the economic impact of this pandemic, the Bank announced on Wednesday that it will keep its key interest rate target on hold at 0.25 per cent.

Statistics Canada also released a flash estimate of the monthly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for March to try to approximate the impact of the measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19.

This estimate shows a 9 per cent drop in GDP in March — which StatCan says is the largest one-month decline in GDP on record.

These early estimates also showed that although economic disruptions have been "both deep and widespread," according to the StatCan publication, some industries have been harder hit by distancing measures than others. Transportation, accommodation and restaurant industries have been especially impacted by the measures. Retail, entertainment, sports events and cinemas have also seen a major decline.

However, activity in the health sector, food distribution, online retailing and streaming all grew in the month of March — showing that some industries are continuing to thrive despite physical distancing measures.

The real estate industry also took a hit in March. The Canadian Real Estate Association said Wednesday that home sales dropped 14.3 per cent in March, compared with February, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The numbers only started to drop towards the end of the month, and preliminary data for the first week of April shows both listings and sales dropped to half what they were at the same time last year.

The World Health Organization released guidelines on Tuesday on what should be in place before any governments look to ease physical distancing measures and reopen their economies. These include assurances that the transmission of the virus is under control, that the health-care system is equipped to detect, test, isolate and treat every case, and outbreaks are minimized in places like nursing homes.

According to an analysis by the Canadian Press, Canada has not fully met any of the requirements.

With files from The Canadian Press