WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is urging Americans to heed his administration’s guidelines for responding to the coronavirus pandemic, calling it “a matter of life and death.”
The president’s warning on Tuesday came with new projections that there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S. even if social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Public health officials stressed that the number could be less if people bear down on keeping their distance from one another.
The coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, says officials believe the nation can do much better than the grim forecast if everyone takes seriously their role in preventing the spread of disease.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the US should prepare for a reality where 100,000 Americans are killed from coronavirus, he said Tuesday afternoon during a coronavirus task force briefing.
“As sobering as that number is, we should be prepared for it. Is it going to be that much? I hope not and I think the more we push back on mitigation, the less likelihood it would that number. But as being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that that is a possibility that that’s what we’ll see,” Fauci said.
Fauci added on the projected numbers of deaths: “We don’t accept that number. We are going to do everything we can to be below that.” “This is the thing to anticipate but that doesn’t mean that we are going to accept it,” Fauci said in the White House briefing room.
