NEW YORK (Reuters) – An internal U.S. government document projects a surge in coronavirus cases and a sharp rise in daily deaths by June 1, the New York Times reported on Monday, even as President Donald Trump urged states to lift restrictions to quell the pandemic.
The document, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, projects that COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, will kill 3,000 Americans a day by the end of May, the Times said, up from a current daily toll that a Reuters tally places at around 2,000.
The projections, pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now, the Times said.
Asked about the Times report, White House spokesman Judd Deere said: “This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting.”
Deere’s statement said: “The health of the American people remains President Trump’s top priority and that will continue as we monitor the efforts by states to ease restrictions.”
The coronavirus has infected more than 1.1 million Americans and killed nearly 68,000, according to the Reuters tally.
Trump has given varying predictions for the number of people in the United States who will succumb to COVID-19, which has no vaccine or known cure.
As recently as Friday the president had said he hoped fewer than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked of 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.
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