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Fauci: 'Millions' of US Coronavirus Cases Likely, '200,000' Deaths

Fauci: 'Millions' of US Coronavirus Cases Likely, '200,000' Deaths
Anthony Fauci (AP)

Sunday, 29 March 2020 11:08 AM EDT

The U.S. government's foremost infection disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the U.S. will certainly have “millions of cases” of COVID-19 and more than 100,000 deaths.

“I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases,” he said, quickly correcting himself to say he meant deaths.

"We're going to have millions of cases," he added on CNN's "State of the Union." "But I just don't think we really need to make a projection when it's such a moving target that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people.

"What we do know is that we've got a serious problem in New York. We have a serious problem in new Orleans. And we're going to be developing serious problems in other areas."

The U.S. is currently reporting more than 124,000 cases and more than 2,100 deaths.

Since 2010, the flu has killed between 12,000 and 61,000 Americans a year, according to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 1918-19 flu pandemic killed 675,000 in the United States, according to the CDC.

Fauci was speaking as the federal government is discussing rolling back guidelines on social distancing in areas that have not been hard-hit by the outbreak.

Fauci says he would only support the rollback in lesser-impacted areas if there is enhanced availability of testing in place to monitor those areas. He acknowledged “it’s a little iffy there” right now.

New York City will need hundreds more ventilators in a few days and more masks, gowns and other supplies by April 5, Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN on Sunday.

New Orleans will run out of ventilators around April 4 and officials in Louisiana still do not know whether they will receive any ventilators from the national stockpile, the governor said.

Louisiana has tried to order 12,000 ventilators from commercial vendors and has received 192, Governor John Bel Edwards said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"We haven't yet been approved for ventilators out of the national stockpile. I continue to press that case and I hope we will be cut in for a slice of what they have left," Edwards said. "It is the one thing that really keeps me up at night."

Doctors are also especially concerned about a shortage of ventilators, breathing machines needed by many of those suffering from the pneumonia-like respiratory ailment.

Dr. Arabia Mollette, an emergency medicine physician at Brookdale and St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, has started praying during the cab ride to work in the morning before she enters what she describes as a "medical warzone." At the end of her shift, which often runs much longer than the scheduled 12 hours, she sometimes cannot hold back tears.

"We're trying to keep our heads above water without drowning," Mollette said. "We are scared. We're trying to fight for everyone else's life, but we also fight for our lives as well."

On Saturday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned residents of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey against non-essential domestic travel for 14 days.

Tests to track the disease's progress also remain in short supply, despite repeated White House promises that they would be widely available.

Since the virus first appeared in the United States in late January, President Donald Trump has vacillated between playing down the risks of infection and urging Americans to take steps to slow its spread. He said he would hold a news conference at 5 p.m. ET

Around the world, doctors were forced to make tough choices about which patients to save with their limited breathing machines, and Spain and Italy demanded more European help as they fight still-surging coronavirus infections in the continent’s worst crisis since World War II.

The confirmed global death toll surpassed 31,000 and new virus epicenters emerged in U.S. cities like Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. Even rural America has not been immune, as virus hotspots erupt in Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens.

Spain and Italy alone account for more than half of the world's death toll, and are still seeing over 800 deaths a day each.

Experts say, however, that virus toll numbers across the world are being seriously under-represented because of limited testing and political decisions about which bodies to count. Unlike the U.S., France and Italy do not count deaths that take place at home or in nursing homes, even though nursing homes are known coronavirus incubators around the world.

‘’Europe must demonstrate that it is able to respond to this historic call,’’ Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said late Saturday. “I will fight until the last drop of sweat, until the last gram of energy, to obtain a strong, vigorous, cohesive European response."

Restrictions in the United States have stopped far short of the restrictions imposed in Europe or elsewhere. Parisians are fined if they try to leave the city, South Africans can't even buy liquor, and Serbians are upset over a ban on walking their dog. In Italy, burials are being held with only one family member.

Spain moved to tighten its lockdown and ban all nonessential work Sunday as it hit another daily record of 838 dead. The country's overall official toll was more than 6,500.

Spain’s health emergencies chief, Fernando Simón, said the country's infection rate fell Sunday to 9%, down from 18% three days before. But he said the number of people in intensive care units keeps rising and hospitals are at their limits in several regions.

“That is why we have to strictly apply the control measures,” he said.

The crisis is pummeling world economies and putting huge strains on national health care systems. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for a more vigorous response from the 27-nation European Union.

“It is the most difficult moment for the EU since its foundation and it has to be ready to rise to the challenge,” he said.

Spain, Italy, France and six other EU members have asked the union to share the burden by issuing European debt, dubbed coronabonds, to help fight the virus. But the idea has met resistance from Germany and the Netherlands.

European countries have also resisted sharing masks with their neighbors for fear that they, too, will need them in mass quantities soon. Many countries have turned to China, where the outbreak is easing, flying in cargo planes to get protective medical equipment.

These tensions have raised new fears about whether the EU will survive this crisis.

"It’s really, really important that we achieve better coordination,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.

Worldwide infections surpassed 680,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The United States leads the world with about 125,000 reported cases, but five other countries have higher death tolls: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France.

Italy has more than 10,000 deaths, the most of any country.

Egypt shut its beaches as cases in the Mideast surpassed 50,000. Police in the Philippines stepped up arrests of quarantine violators, and more tourists were evacuated from Mount Everest and the Indonesian island of Bali.

Poland is considering delaying its May 10 presidential election, and Russia ordered borders to close on Monday. A prominent French politician with the virus died, France’s first death of a senior official.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has the virus himself, warned: “Things will get worse before they get better."

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and lead to death.

More than 145,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins.

Pope Francis called Sunday for a cease-fire in all conflicts around the globe ‘’to focus together on the true fight of our lives.’’ He also urged authorities to take special care of those in nursing homes, military barracks and jails.

In Detroit, which has a large low-income population, the death toll rose to 31 with about 1,400 infections in a rate that shocked health officials.

“This is off the charts,” said Dr. Teena Chopra, medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the Detroit Medical Center. “We are seeing a lot of patients that are presenting to us with severe disease, rather than minor disease."

Some U.S. states began to try to limit exposure from visitors from harder-hit areas. Rhode Island National Guard troops were going door to door in coastal communities to find New Yorkers. Florida is setting up checkpoints to screen visitors from Louisiana.

As others tightened controls, China eased more restrictions ,following the ruling Communist Party’s declaration of victory over the coronavirus. Airline flights from Hubei province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak resumed Sunday. Subway and bus service resumed Saturday in the province's hard-hit capital of Wuhan.

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Headline
The U.S. government's foremost infection disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the U.S. will certainly have "millions of cases" of COVID-19 and more than 100,000 deaths. As the U.S. tops the world in reported infections from the new coronavirus, the director of the...
fauci, coronavirus, cases, millions, 200, 000deaths, trump
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2020-08-29
Sunday, 29 March 2020 11:08 AM
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