“This is going to be a very painful, a very, very painful two weeks,” President Donald Trump told a press conference at the White House.
Washington| President Donald Trump warned Americans on Tuesday of a “painful” two weeks ahead in fighting the coronavirus, as the White House projected that the coronavirus pandemic could claim 100,000 to 240,000 lives, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Striking an unusually sombre tone at the start a marathon two-hour briefing, the US president defended his early handling of the crisis and displayed models that, he said, justified his decision to keep much of the economy shut down.
Trump described the pandemic as “a plague.”
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” he said.
New York state’s infections now exceed those reported in China’s Hubei province, where the virus began. As many as 200,000 Americans are projected to die in the outbreak, said Deborah Birx, the top public-health official coordinating the White House coronavirus task force.
In perhaps his most sombre news conference to date about the pandemic, Trump, who has faced criticism for playing down the threat of the outbreak in its initial phases, urged the population to heed guidance to limit groups to no more than 10 people, work from home and not dine in restaurants or bars.
“It’s absolutely critical for the American people to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. It’s a matter of life and death,” Trump said.
Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus taskforce response coordinator, told reporters that models show a worst-case scenario of between 1.5m and 2.2m deaths in the US “without mitigation”.
Also Read: China To Build Makeshift Hospital For Pakistan To Treat Coronavirus Patients
But with measures in place, she added, the “mountain” could be reduced to a “hill” that projects 100,000–240,000 deaths – still a staggering total. She stressed that the number could be lower if people changed their behaviour.
She displayed a chart in which New York had by far the most cumulative cases, followed by New Jersey, then the other 48 states bunched together. Birx expressed hope that social distancing could prevent major outbreaks in those states.
“There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviours, each of our behaviours translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days,” Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator at the White House, said.
Infectious diseases specialist Anthony Fauci told the press conference that “mitigation is actually working” and that authorities are “doing everything we can to get it (the death toll) significantly below that.”
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
