US President Donald Trump now says his worst-case coronavirus scenario would be 100,000 deaths, but the country will probably reach that grim milestone by next month, according to several scientific models — none of which predict a summertime halt to the virus’s spread.
“We’re going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000 to 100,000 people. That’s a horrible thing,” Trump said Sunday evening at a virtual town hall meeting on Fox News.
The Republican incumbent, who is vying for re-election in November, argued that without lockdown measures that have crippled the world’s biggest economy, the toll would have been far greater — more than 1.2 million “at a minimum.”
But Trump’s end-game figure is likely far lower than the reality — his own White House says 100,000 to 240,000 Americans will die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
