Coronavirus: Donald Trump extends social distancing to 30 days, US deaths may hit 200,000
Donald Trump extends social distancing for another month, ending his hopes of reopening the economy by Easter.
America’s top infectious diseases expert has warned that up to 200,000 people could die of coronavirus in the US as Donald Trump extended social distancing guidelines for another month rather than reopen the economy.
President Trump said the peak death rate in the US was likely in about two weeks and that if his government did not take the action it has as many as 2.2 million Americans may have died in the pandemic.
As the death toll across the US continued to soar, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the US was “going to have millions of cases” of the virus and he guessed there could be anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths.
“We have a very difficult problem here,” Dr Fauci said. “We’re going to see places like Detroit and other cities starting to get into trouble.”
Dr Fauci later defended his projections at a White House press conference saying it was “entirely conceivable” that the death toll could be that high, but he said “what we are trying to do is not let that happen”.
President Trump, who previously had said he wanted to ease social distancing guidelines by Easter on April 12 in order to reopen the US economy, said he had agreed with the advice of his health experts to extend those guidelines.
“We will be extending out guidelines to April 30 to slow the spread,: he said, adding that any move to ease the guidelines prematurely would be “disastrous”.
“I want our life back again, I want the country back, I want the world back,” President Trump said.
He said that by June 1 he believed the country would be “well on our way to recovery ... we will win and when we do we will rebound with astonishing speed.”
Meanwhile House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the President of contributing to the death toll by his early denials about the seriousness of the coronavirus.
“His denial at the beginning was deadly, his delaying of getting equipment ... to where it is needed is deadly,” Ms Pelosi said.
“We really want to work in a unified way to get the job done here, but we cannot continue to allow him to continue to make these underestimates of what is actually happening here.”
“As the president fiddles, people are dying. We just have to take every precaution,” she said.
Her comments prompted a furious response from Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham.
“She’s blaming the president of the United States for people dying because of the way he’s led the country,” Senator Graham said. “That’s the most shameful, disgusting statement by any politician in modern history.”
The death toll from the virus in the US has spiked sharply in recent days, with more than 137,000 cases and at least 2400 deaths.
In the nation’s hotspot of New York cases rose to 60,000 with 965 deaths, including 222 people dying in the previous 24 hours.
Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, warned that other US cities would soon experience what New York was going through.
“Every metro area should assume they could have an outbreak equivalent to New York,” Dr Birx said. “No state, no metro area, will be spared.”
“We are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now.”
In New York hospitals have struggled to handle the sudden influx of patients and have called for urgent supplies of masks and ventilators.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he believes the peak of infections in New York will come in the next two to three weeks and he said he feared the state’s final death toll would be in the “thousands”.
“I don’t see how you can read that and not see thousands of deaths,” Mr Cuomo said after the state’s health commissioner said the fatality rate in New York was around one per cent.
New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit are now experiencing a surge of new virus cases.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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