Washington (dpa) - US President Donald Trump is pressing for an opening of the economy - however, according to an internal document by his authorities, the corona crisis in the US could still worsen.
The New York Times published on Monday a presentation compiled by the Department of Health and Fema, which contains two diagrams with the note "for business use only". One of them is forecast to increase the number of new coronavirus cases to around 200,000 a day by June 1. Most recently, the CDC health authority recorded an increase of almost 30,000 from Saturday to Sunday.
According to another chart, experts expect the number of deaths from Covid 19 disease to rise to around 3,000 a day by June 1. Most recently, the health authority again reported an increase in the number of deaths from 1452 to Saturday. The White House rejected the forecasts. They did not reflect the models of the coronavirus working group in the White House or the data they analyzed, said White House vice-spokesman Judd Deere.
Deere emphasized that it was neither a White House paper nor was it presented to the working group. Trump's guidelines for a gradual opening up of the economy were based on scientific findings with which government health experts agreed. Trump's top priority remains American health.
Trump had revised up his earlier predictions about feared deaths in the U.S. from the virus on Sunday night. He now assumes a total of 75,000 to 100,000 deaths, the president told Fox News. In mid-April, Trump had expected 60,000 to 65,000 deaths. By Sunday, CDC had recorded 1.12 million infections and 65,735 deaths in the United States.
Current CDC numbers
Presentation at the New York Times
Report in the New York Times