White House projects 240K could die in US

WHITE HOUSE MEDICAL EXPERTS SAID THAT 100,000 TO 240,000 PEOPLE IN THE US COULD ULTIMATELY PERISH FROM THE RESPIRATORY DISEASE

NEWYORK:THE number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infections in the United States crossed 200,000 and that of fatalities soared close to 5,000 on Wednesday, hours after the White House projected 100,000 to 240,000 deaths could take place before the outbreak is over.

In recent days, the country has taken the spot at the top of the list of 203 countries affected by the pandemic. On Tuesday, US had reported over 25,000 new cases and 912 new deaths as hot spots flared across the country, in addition to New York which has been hit the hardest.

“This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we’ve ever had in our country,” president Donald Trump said, adding: “We’re going to lose thousands of people.”

Later on Wednesday, vice president Mike Pence told news channel CNN that White House’s models for the coronavirus outbreak showed the country on a trajectory akin to hard-hit Italy. “We think Italy may be the most comparable area to the United States at this point,” Pence said.

In New York, authorities rushed to bring in an army of medical volunteers as the statewide death toll surged past 1,900.

New hot spots were reported in places like New Orleans, Detroit and Southern California, New York City was the hardest hit of them all, accounting for the majority of the state’s deaths, with bodies loaded onto refrigerated morgue trucks by gurney and forklift outside overwhelmed hospitals, in some cases in full view of passing motorists. And the worst is yet to come.

“How does it end? And people want answers,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “I want answers. The answer is nobody knows for sure.”.