The White House published models this Tuesday in which it is projected that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die because of the coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump said during the press conference of the White House response team to the coronavirus on Tuesday that the country had “about two, very, very painful weeks” ahead of it.
Medical experts warned that despite disruptive social distancing measures, the pathogen could cause up to 240,000 deaths.
The doctor Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the country’s leading expert on the subject, and Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the response team, presented the grim projection as “our real number”, although they assured that they would work to reduce the number.
Fauci and Birx said the number of deaths could be much higher, between 1.6 million and two million, if the population did not follow the measures of social distancing.
“We really believe we can do much better than that,” said Dr. Birx. “That would require all Americans to take seriously their role in preventing the spread of the disease.”
The president described the efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus as “a matter of life and death” and urged the public to heed their administration’s guidelines. And he said the country would soon see a “light at the end of the tunnel” in the pandemic that has killed more than 3,500 Americans and infected more than 185,000.
“I want all Americans to be prepared for the difficult days ahead,” Trump said. “We are going through two very difficult weeks.”
“We continue to see things escalate,” Fauci said. “We cannot be discouraged by that because mitigation is working and will work.”
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revise their initial recommendation not to wear face masks to prevent the spread of the virus, after new data suggested that many of the infections are caused by asymptomatic people
The comments came after Trump announced Sunday that he was extending social distancing guidelines until April 30. that urged Americans to cease social gatherings, work from home, suspend learning in schools, among other measures, in a national effort to stop the spread of the virus.
It was an abrupt change for Trump, who spent much of last week targeting April 12 as the day he wanted to revive the country.
Trump called the data “very sobering” and said he understood that 100,000 deaths was a minimum that would be difficult to avoid.
Many states and local governments already have stricter controls on mobility and meetings. Texas joined a long list of states Tuesday that have ordered their residents to stay home., including Illinois, New York, Washington and California, among others.
Birx said the experiences of the state of Washington and California give hope that other states can keep the coronavirus under control through social distancing. That is because they quickly moved to contain the first coronavirus clusters by closing schools, urging people to work from home, banning large gatherings, and taking other measures that are now familiar to most Americans, he noted.
“It reassures me to look at the Seattle line,” he added. “The states of California and Washington reacted very early to this.”
Trump spoke after another troublesome day for the stock market, which has been in a free fall as the cononavirus halted the economy and left millions of people unemployed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points, or approximately 1.9%, to seal the worst end of the first quarter of its 135-year history.
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