US President Donald Trump has warned Americans to brace for a 'hell of a bad two weeks' ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US from the coronavirus pandemic, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Public health officials stressed that the number could be less if people across the country bear down on keeping their distance from one another.
The coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force Dr. Deborah Birx, says they really believe they can do a lot better than that.
She said it would require all Americans to take seriously their role in preventing the spread of disease.
The government's top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, says this is a number that they need to anticipate, but they don’t necessarily have to accept it as being inevitable.
Trump called it 'a matter of life and death' for Americans to heed his administration’s guidelines and predicted the country would soon see a 'light at the end of the tunnel' in a pandemic that has killed more than 3,500 Americans and infected 170,000.
