White House: Daily Pandemic Death Toll May Peak at Over 2,200 by Mid-April

White House: Daily Pandemic Death Toll May Peak at Over 2,200 by Mid-April
President Donald Trump speaks while flanked by Dr. Anthony Fauci (L), director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Vice President Mike Pence during the daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Brady Briefing room at the White House in Washington on March 31, 2020. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Ivan Pentchoukov
Updated:

President Donald Trump and members of the White House task force on the CCP virus advised Americans to brace themselves for the worst days of the pandemic, citing a projection that the daily death toll may reach 2,214 by April 15 at the peak of the outbreak.

Trump struck a somber note at the opening of the daily briefing on the pandemic at the White House on Tuesday, praising front-line healthcare workers and lamenting the great loss of life.

“Our country is in the midst of a great national trial, unlike any we have ever faced before,” Trump said. “We’re all at war with a deadly virus. Success in this fight will require the full, absolute measure of our collective strength, love, and devotion.”

Dr. Deborah Birx cited projections that anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 people may die from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus before the pandemic is defeated, even with mitigation measures in place.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that while there are some signs that mitigation measures are working, it will take time before the real impact of social distancing becomes apparent. A reduction in the number of confirmed cases will be the first sign of improvement, Fauci said. Meanwhile, the statistics on deaths, intensive care unit admissions, and hospitalizations will lag behind in time.

“So what we’re going to see and we’ve got to brace ourselves, in the next several days to a week or so, we’re going to continue to see things go up,” Fauci said. “We cannot be discouraged by that, because the mitigation is actually working and will work.”

An ambulance worker sprays disinfectant inside an ambulance outside The Brooklyn Hospital Center during the CCP virus outbreak in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 31, 2020. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)
An ambulance worker sprays disinfectant inside an ambulance outside The Brooklyn Hospital Center during the CCP virus outbreak in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 31, 2020. Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
A woman wears a mask as she crosses an empty street near the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 30, 2020. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman wears a mask as she crosses an empty street near the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 30, 2020. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

The White House released the latest projections days after extending federal social distancing guidelines through April 30. The president and the officials all called on Americans to do their part to defeat the virus.

“It’s communities that will do this. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviors. Each of our behaviors translating into something that will change the course of this pandemic over the next 30 days,” Birx said.

According to the model cited by Birx, had the United States not taken on social distancing measures, as many as 1.5 to 2.2 million people could have died from the disease. She said there is hope in the latest numbers from Italy, where confirmed case have begun to drop after the authorities imposed a nationwide lockdown.

The rapid increase in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in New York and New Jersey makes the two states outliers from the rest of the country, another model referenced by Birx shows. The White House’s strategy is now to focus all resources on helping the two states while making sure similar outbreaks don’t happen in other places.

The United States had more than 186,000 confirmed cases of CCP virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, at the time of the briefing. A total of 3,712 people have died from COVID-19 nationwide.

Ivan Pentchoukov
Ivan Pentchoukov
Author
Ivan is the national editor of The Epoch Times. He has reported for The Epoch Times on a variety of topics since 2011.
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