The coronavirus could kill up to 200,000 people in the United States, an infectious diseases expert, Donald Trump's advisor on the pandemic, said on Sunday, while calling for caution on projections. "Depending on what we see today, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000," said Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN of the possible number of deaths.
Become in the eyes of millions of Americans a reassuring figure in the course of his almost daily interventions within the "task force" of the White House on the virus, this expert also evoked "millions of possible cases". But he also wished to recall, with caution, that the projection models were always based on assumptions.
"They give the worst and the best of scenarios. And generally the reality is somewhere in the middle, ”he explained. “I have never seen, among the diseases on which I had to work, a model whose worst case was realized. They are still overrated, "added the director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
"No state, no metropolis will be spared"
According to Johns Hopkins University, the count of which refers, more than 130,000 Covid-19 positive cases have been officially reported so far in the United States, a record worldwide. The number of deaths (2,381) has more than doubled since Wednesday, when it had taken a month to reach the 1,000 mark.
University of Washington medical school predicts peak epidemic around mid-April in the US, with death toll stagnating around 80,000 as of June, following trajectory current. According to their model, this number evolves from 38,000 dead minimum, to 162,000 maximum. In comparison, the flu killed 34,000 people in the country during the epidemic in 2018-2019.
Another Donald Trump advisor on coronavirus, Dr. Deborah Birx, warned on Sunday that the whole country should prepare for the worst. "No state, no metropolis will be spared," she hammered on the NBC channel. "Each metropolis should consider the possibility of a crisis equivalent to that of New York, and do everything it can to prevent it now," she insisted.
Mardi Gras festivities "probably" contributed to the spread
New York State, which Donald Trump had planned to quarantine on Saturday before finally giving it up, alone accounts for almost half of the cases officially declared in the United States. Its governor Andrew Cuomo communicated on Sunday a new assessment of nearly 60,000 cases and 965 deaths.
But other "hot spots" appear across the country, including neighboring New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana or the cities of Detroit and Chicago, in the north of the country. A baby under the age of one has died in the state of Illinois, local authorities announced on Saturday. The leaders of these most affected states worried on Sunday about a lack of equipment in hospitals to cope with the influx of patients, including artificial respirators.
"The situation in Detroit is getting worse from minute to minute," said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “The virus is obviously spreading faster than we would like. We are staying on a trajectory that would make us exceed our health care capacity ”, worried for his part the governor of Louisiana John Bel Edwards. He acknowledged that the famous Mardi Gras festivities had "probably" contributed in mid-February to the spread of the virus around New Orleans.
- Donald trump
- Coronavirus
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