Trump acknowledges US death toll could reach 100,000

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump yesterday sharply revised upward his projected toll of United States Covid19 deaths, saying fatalities could reach 100,000, even as he defied warnings from leading public health experts and renewed his calls for a quick reopening of businesses across the country.

Speaking at a Fox News event at the Lincoln Memorial, Trump acknowledged being warned in late January about the threat posed by the virus, but faulted officials who he said delivered their assessment ‘‘matteroffactly — it was not a big deal’’.

Earlier yesterday, health experts from inside and outside the Government warned the outbreak could flare up more fiercely in coming months, as many states moved to ease stayathome restrictions.

As the US death toll rose yesterday to 68,602, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr Deborah Birx implicitly acknowledged that Trump, as recently as last month, had been overly optimistic about likely fatalities.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Birx said the administration continued to operate on the assumption that the more likely scenario called for as many as nearly a quarter of a million deaths, even with shutdown measures taken to date.

‘‘Our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost,’’ she said.

‘‘And that’s with full mitigation, and us learning from each other how to social distance.’’

Trump used his forum on Fox to tout his own response to the crisis and to rail against Democrats, his predecessor, selected governors, news media and China, where the virus originated.

Only two weeks ago, Trump was predicting 50,000 or 60,000 Americans might die. Yesterday he acknowledged the parameters had changed.

‘‘We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people,’’ he said, calling that scenario ‘‘horrible’’.

He again called for a reopening of business, coupling that with a prediction that the economy would rebound this summer and boom next year — if he was reelected.

Others counselled caution. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS that there were rising numbers of new cases in about 20 states, suggesting that the outbreak was not yet being tamped down to the degree that officials had hoped.

‘‘While mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected,’’ he said.

‘‘We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.’’

Gottlieb said that by autumn, ‘‘you can see this slow simmer explode into a new epidemic or large outbreaks’’.

‘‘That’s the concern — that if we don’t snuff this out more, and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time,’’ he said.

Birx also took issue with antishutdown protesters crowding together in public, often unmasked.

Of the protesters, some of them armed, who crowded into the Michigan statehouse last week, Birx said they risked infecting one other, and passing the virus on to vulnerable people in their lives.

‘‘It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and they infect their grandmother or grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or very unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of their lives.

‘‘So we need to protect each other at the same time as we’re voicing our discontent.’’

Asked whether it was safe for people to flock to beaches in California, Birx said that depended on proximity.

‘‘If it’s done with social distancing, yes. If it’s not done with social distancing, no.’’