President Donald Trump on Sunday predicted there would be about 60,000 deaths in the United States due to the coronavirus, a number much lower than the 100,000 that earlier models had predicted.
“It looks like it’ll be at about a 60,000 mark, which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of,” Trump said at a White House press conference on Sunday.
Trump compared the deaths to flu death numbers.
“So a flu would have had [35,000], and it goes from [27,000 to 35,000, 40,000, 50,000]. Sometimes, it’s over a long period of time,” he said but added that the coronavirus was “much different” than the flu.
“Much different. It’s even a much different death. It’s a much different death; this is violent,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that from October 2019 to April 2020, there have been between 24,000 to 62,000 deaths from the flu.
There are currently just over 40,500 reported deaths in the U.S. from coronavirus.
Trump added that if the administration did not take the measures it has taken, the death toll could be “a million.”
Just three weeks ago, experts on the White House coronavirus task force predicted between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, known as the U.S. government’s top expert on infectious diseases and member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said on CNN on March 29, “Looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say 100,000 to 200,000 [deaths].”
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook.