WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has warned that as many as 100,000 people could die of coronavirus in the United States as the country’s death toll edged close to 70,000 on Monday.

“We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. That is a horrible thing,” Mr Trump said in a Fox News virtual town hall meeting on Sunday night.

He said had his administration not acted promptly, “the minimum we would have lost is a million, two million, four million five. That’s the minimum.”

Some media outlets and opposition Democrats blame the for America’s unprecedented losses in this viral outbreak, claiming that the administration acted too slowly, which allowed the virus to spread across the country.

This was the second time in two weeks that President Trump conceded his prior Covid-19 death toll projections have proven wrong. Last Monday, Mr Trump had said he expected 60 to 70,000 deaths. On April 20, he said he did not anticipate the death toll to surpass 60,000.

Although he acknowledged that the death toll could surpass the 100,000 mark, Mr Trump still supported the call to reopen the country.

“I think a lot of people want to go back. They just want to go back. You see it every day. You see demonstrations all over the country and those are meaningful demonstrations,” he said.

He assured Americans that “you can satisfy both” public health and economic concerns by resuming economic functions in the summer, even as the virus is expected to persist.

Mr Trump also assured Americans that government scientists and drug companies would soon develop a vaccine to prevent coronavirus infections.

“I think we’re going to have a vaccine by the end of the year,” he told Fox News. “The doctors would say, well you shouldn’t say that. I will say what I think we’ll have a vaccine sooner rather than later.”

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2020