Trump predicts death toll may be as high as 100,000

On Sunday 3rd May, Trump predicted the death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic could be as high as 100,000 in the United States alone. Despite this seemingly shocking figure, he has begun to pressure states to start re-opening public places and businesses.

Speaking to Fox News, Trump said, “we’re going to lose anywhere from 75,800 to 100,000 people”. This is quite a significant jump considering last month Trump predicted that 60,000 lives would be lost to the virus in the US. The significant increase may have occurred due to the US government ignoring early warnings of the virus. Trump explained, “on Jan. 23, I was told that there could be a virus coming in but it was of no real import(ance)”.

Although Trump admitted the figure was a “horrible thing”, he expressed his belief that parks and beaches should re-open and schools should resume physical classes in fall.

Despite the fact the predicted death toll had risen by 40,000, Trump praised himself with preventing the death toll from being a higher number. He claimed, “if we didn’t do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher, it’s possible higher than 2.2.”

Source: The New York Times