Trump says up to 100,000 Americans may die from coronavirus
04 May, 2020
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he now believes as much as 100,000 Americans could die in the coronavirus pandemic, following the death toll passed his earlier estimates, but said he was confident a vaccine would be produced by the year's end.
Trump alternated throughout a two-hour virtual town hall broadcast by FOX News between forecasting an instant recovery for the united states economy and casting blame for the pandemic's spread on China, where the disease is thought to have originated.
The COVID-19 illness, caused by the new coronavirus, has sickened a lot more than 1.1 million in the usa and killed more than 67,000 Americans, shut wide swaths of society, including most schools and many businesses.
"We will lose from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. That's a horrible thing," said Trump, who as recently on Friday had said he hoped less than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had discussed 60,000 to 70,000 deaths.
About half the states have finally moved toward at least partial lifting of shutdowns as the number of new cases of the COVID-19 illness has begun to drop or level off and as citizens agitate for rest from restrictions which have sent the economy into a tailspin.
"We can not stay closed as a country [or] we're not gonna have a country left," Trump said.
Trump has criticized FOX recently, casting the conservative-leaning network as insufficiently supportive. He faced few tough questions in the case, which gave him a new format to reach the public while he is unable to hold campaign rallies and after he faced widespread criticism for his combative daily briefings.
Within an assessment that clashes with those of some public health experts, Trump said he believed that by the finish of the year there would be a vaccine against COVID-19.
"I think we’re likely to have a vaccine by the end of the entire year. The doctors would say, you shouldn't say that," Trump said. "I'll say what I believe ... I think we’ll have a vaccine sooner than later."
Many health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, have cautioned that a vaccine is likely a year to 18 months away.
There can be an "incredibly small" potential for having an efficient vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus next year, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on April 22.
Trump also said he wanted students to come back to schools and colleges in the autumn, even as he acknowledged the likelihood of a resurgence of the condition.
"We'll released the embers, we'll released whatever it can be. We may need to released a fire," he said.
Speaking the day prior to the Senate returns to Washington, Trump said it had been possible that federal coronavirus aid could rise to $6 trillion from the almost $3 trillion Congress has recently passed to attempt to ease the heavy monetary toll of the crisis.
"There is more help coming. There has to be," he said.
Democrats have made clear they want to provide a sizable rescue package for state and local governments within a broader bill - one which could total over $2 trillion - while some Republicans criticized the idea as unreasonably expensive.
"We will be doing infrastructure and I told Steve [Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin] just today we are not doing anything unless we get yourself a payroll tax cut," Trump said.
Trump, who has been criticized for not moving faster early in the entire year to avoid the spread of the condition, sought to blunt the criticism by blaming China.
Trump said China had made a "horrible mistake" without saying just what this is or providing specific evidence for his assertion.
Early in the day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there is "a substantial amount of evidence" that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not dispute US intelligence agencies' conclusion that it was not man-made.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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