WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Sunday that the peak death rate in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic was likely to hit in two weeks and extended “social distancing” guidelines until April 30.
“Easter should be the peak number,” Trump said of the Christian holiday which falls on April 12.
“The modelling estimates that the peak in death rate is likely to hit in two weeks,” the president said during a televised briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House.
“It should start coming down — and hopefully very substantially — from that point,” he said.
Trump also addressed statements by one of his top medical advisors, Anthony Fauci, who estimated on Sunday that the virus could possibly result in 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in the United States.
Trump characterized that as a “horrible number” but said it would have been worse without the lockdown orders and other efforts taken so far to prevent the spread of
