The US is headed for a “very tough two weeks”, President Donald Trump has warned, advising people to be prepared for the “hard days”ahead, as the country was at war with a deadly coronavirus pandemic that the White House projects could claim one to two lakh lives during the next fortnight.
Trump’s remarks came as Deborah Bix, a member of White House Task Force on coronavirus, based on a model from actual data from the ground, said the death toll in the US could be between 1,00,000 to 2,00,000, with the strict implementation of the existing mitigation measures including social distancing till April 30.
If no steps were to be taken, the death toll could range between 1.5 million and 2.2 million, Brix said on a day when the confirmed number of coronavirus infections in the US, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website, zoomed to over 1,89,500, adding more than 25,000 new cases in a single day and the fatalities rose to over 4,000.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” a grim-faced Trump told reporters on Tuesday at a briefing which has now become his daily coronavirus press conference at the White House for more than 10 days.
“We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks and then, hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as I think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard, we are going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. But this is going to be a very painful, very, very, very painful two weeks,” Trump said.
