Washington (AFP)

Between 70 and 150 million people could get the new coronavirus in the United States, according to a projection transmitted to the American Senate and reported by a parliamentarian.

Elected Democrat in the House of Representatives Rashida Tlaib spoke Thursday at a hearing of members of the special force dedicated to the fight against Covid-19 in the country.

"Congressional doctor told Senate that he expects between 70 and 150 million people will eventually contract coronavirus in the United States," she said, confirming media reports Americans.

According to Axios, who cited two sources, doctor Brian Monahan had transmitted the projection to officials of the Senate's Republican and Democratic parties on Tuesday, asking them to prepare for the worst.

The most pessimistic assumption is that 46% of the 327 million Americans are infected. In comparison, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that 70% of the population of her country could contract the disease.

About 80% of cases are mild, and the death rate is around 1%, according to the latest estimates communicated to Congress on Wednesday by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and emblematic figure of research in the United States. United.

Following this projection, this would mean between 700,000 and 1.5 million deaths in the United States. By way of comparison, in 2018, heart disease (which is the leading cause of death from disease in the United States) killed 650,000 people in 2018, and influenza and pneumonia combined caused 60,000 deaths.

The risk associated with the new coronavirus increases from the age of 60, and is increased for people over the age of 80, as well as for people with other diseases, such as diabetes, heart or respiratory diseases, or for those whose immune systems are weakened for other reasons.

Asked by Rashida Tlaib whether he thought this estimate of the number of Americans potentially infected in the future was correct, Anthony Fauci said: "We have to be careful with these kinds of predictions because they are based on a model . "

"The quality of a model depends on the quality of the assumptions on which it is based," he added, indicating that the most pessimistic projection could be avoided by stemming the spread of the disease.

He also noted that the model developed in 2014 by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Ebola predicted more than one million people infected. Ultimately, less than 30,000 people were.

© 2020 AFP