Federal guidance urging social distancing will stay in place through April 30, President Donald Trump announced Sunday as he backed off his hope that the country will be "opened up" by Easter Sunday. He added that deaths due to the coronavirus are likely to peak in two weeks.
The guidelines were originally set to expire this week.
"Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won," Trump said. "That would be the greatest loss of all. ... Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30 to slow the spread."
The announcement comes after Trump last week suggested the federal government would soon relax its guidelines and move to a county-by-county system of addressing the pandemic.
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Asked Sunday whether his previous statement about Easter was a mistake, Trump responded, "No. It was just an aspiration."
Trump also said Sunday that he expects the peak in the death rate is likely to hit in two weeks, and that by June 1 the country "will be well on our way to recovery."
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Officials on the White House coronavirus task force warned earlier Sunday that "every metro area should assume they could have an outbreak equivalent to New York" and doubted the country could reopen businesses and ease social-distancing restrictions by Easter, as the president had suggested.
The coronavirus outbreak could kill 100,000 to 200,000 Americans, the U.S. government's top infectious-disease expert warned Sunday as smoldering hot spots in nursing homes and a growing list of stricken cities heightened the sense of dread across the country.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the dire prediction of fatalities, adding that millions in the U.S. could become infected.
Brought forward by Trump at the outdoor briefing, Fauci said his projection is "entirely conceivable" if not enough is done to mitigate the crisis. He said that helped shape the extension of the guidelines, "a wise and prudent decision."
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The federal guidelines recommend against large group gatherings and urge older people and anyone with existing health problems to stay home. People are urged to work at home when possible and avoid restaurants, bars, nonessential travel and shopping trips.
By evening, the U.S. had more than 140,000 infections and 2,400 deaths, according to the running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases is thought to be considerably higher because of testing shortages and mild illnesses that have gone unreported.
Trump, who has largely avoided talk of potential death and infection rates, cited projection models that said potentially 2.2 million people or more could have died had the country not put social-distancing measures in place. And he said the country would be doing well if it "can hold" the number of deaths "down to 100,000."
"It's a horrible number," Trump said, but added: "We all together have done a very good job."
Ultimately, reopening parts of life that have shut down amid strict distancing measures in many places will depend on the availability of rapid testing, Fauci said.
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"When we get those tests out that you can do right away -- rapid point of care -- then I think we're going to be closer," he said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. "To put a timeline on it, it's going to be a matter of weeks; it's not going to be tomorrow, and it's not going to be next week. It's going to be a little bit more than that."
Modifying the intensity of the closures can happen only when the daily number of new cases flattens and then declines, Fauci said. He pointed to "serious problems" in hot spots such as New York City and, increasingly, New Orleans and Detroit.
"To be honest, we don't have any firm idea" of the peak infection rate, he said.
Though the U.S. leads the world in reported cases, five other countries have higher death tolls: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France.
Worldwide, more than 720,000 infections were reported, and deaths neared 34,000, half of them in Italy and Spain, where hospitals are swamped and the health system is at the breaking point.
PELOSI CRITICIZES TRUMP
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sharply criticized Trump's handling of the pandemic, arguing that his actions have resulted in the loss of American lives.
The White House's coronavirus response coordinator, Deborah Birx, offered a grim assessment Sunday: "No state, no metro area, will be spared."
With covid-19 cases surging in New York -- and new hot spots rapidly developing in Detroit, New Orleans and other parts of the country -- Birx said on NBC News' Meet the Press that state and local officials should act now to inventory supplies and prepare for the eventuality that the outbreak could wreak similar havoc on their communities.
"Every metro area should assume they could have an outbreak equivalent to New York," Birx said. By the time these regions see an influx of patients in their intensive care units, she added, it is likely the virus would have "been spreading from days to weeks."
Birx repeatedly dodged questions about the White House's response -- including the extent to which the federal government might take over procurement for much-needed medical supplies at a moment when state officials say they are competing against one another for masks and ventilators.
In the meantime, state officials continue to sound a fearful, dour note about the outbreak.
"Our numbers are climbing exponentially," said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, appearing later on the show. "We see this astronomical rise. We've got hospitals that are already at capacity, we're already running out of [supplies] as well."
Obtaining medical supplies through a contracting process has placed states in bidding battles as they compete for medical resources, she said. Although her state received 112,000 N95 masks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Saturday, she said hospitals still will run low on protective equipment.
Whitmer added: "We're going to be in dire straits again in a matter of days."
Pelosi noted on CNN that the death toll has doubled in recent days and suggested there should, at some point, be an examination of the Trump administration's handling of the crisis.
"When did this president know about this, and what did he know? ... That's for an after-action review. But as the president fiddles, people are dying. And we just have to take every precaution," the speaker said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said he wouldn't go so far as to lay the blame for deaths on the president. "I think that's a little too harsh," he told NBC.
Biden faulted Trump for holding back on using his full powers under the recently invoked Defense Production Act to spur the manufacture of the full range of needed medical supplies -- and for making erratic statements about the pandemic.
"He should stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply," Biden said.
LOUISIANA IN PERIL
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warned Sunday that his state's health system is at risk of being overwhelmed with patients in a matter of days.
By April 4 or 5, he said on ABC News' This Week, New Orleans will be at capacity on ventilators. Next, he warned, area hospitals will be out of beds.
"We remain on a trajectory, really, to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care," he said.
Edwards, a Democrat, said the state has ordered 12,000 ventilators from both the national stockpile and private options but has received only 192. He warned state officials might have to toughen enforcement if necessary.
In Great Britain, coronavirus infections and deaths will continue to rise over the next few weeks, and only then can the government determine how long the country's lockdown must last, Jenny Harries, the country's deputy chief medical officer, said at a news conference Sunday. It could be six months or longer, she added, until Britain "can get back to normal."
Calling the virus a "moving feast," Harries stressed that rolling back coronavirus restrictions too soon would be "foolish" and could undo any progress made under the current prevention measures.
"We actually anticipate our numbers will get worse over the next week, possibly two, and then we are looking to see whether we have managed to push that curve down and we start to see a decline," Harries said, according to the Telegraph.
She continued, "This is not to say we would be in complete lockdown for six months, but as a nation we have to be really, really responsible and keep doing what we're all doing until we're sure we can gradually start lifting various interventions which are likely to be spaced -- based on the science and our data -- until we gradually come back to a normal way of living."
Confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide passed 720,000 on Sunday.
A top Italian health official said he believes that country is at the "peak" of the outbreak, and that within a week to 10 days the number of cases will start dropping. Italy reported a slight decline in deaths Sunday.
The country has been under a strict lockdown as the government struggles to contain the outbreak, centered in the north. Doctors in Italy, overwhelmed by the number of dead and overrun hospitals, have issued dire warnings to other countries, including the United States, to prepare for the worst-case scenarios.
Moscow will enact a citywide quarantine starting today, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced. The stay-at-home order for all residents comes as the country's confirmed novel coronavirus cases surpassed 1,500 over the weekend. Eight people have died.
Meanwhile, Syria reported the first fatality from the virus in the war-torn country, which has five confirmed infections. State news agency SANA said a woman died upon reaching an emergency room and tested positive for the virus, without saying where it happened.
Libya reported another five cases, bringing its total to eight. The country is split by rival governments, each backed by an array of militias that have been battling over the capital, Tripoli, for nearly a year.
Iran's president Sunday lashed out at criticism of authorities' lagging response to the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, saying the government has to weigh economic concerns as it takes measures to contain the pandemic.
President Hassan Rouhani said authorities had to consider the effect of mass quarantine efforts on Iran's beleaguered economy, which is under heavy U.S. sanctions. It's a dilemma playing out across the globe, as leaders struggle to strike a balance between restricting human contact and keeping their economies from crashing.
"Health is a principle for us, but the production and security of society is also a principle for us," Rouhani said at a Cabinet meeting. "We must put these principles together to reach a final decision."
"This is not the time to gather followers," he added. "This is not a time for political war."
Information for this article was contributed by Brittany Shammas, Kim Bellware, Lateshia Beachum, Miriam Berger, Felicia Sonmez, Cat Zakrzewski and Tony Romm of The Washington Post; and by Matt Sedensky, Michael R. Sisak, Joseph Wilson, Colleen Barry, Angela Charlton, Joe McDonald, Geir Moulson, Vanessa Gera, Jacquelyn Martin, Jonathan Drew, Marina Villeneuve, Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Amir Vahdat, Albert Aji, Jon Gambrell, Samy Magdy and Joseph Krauss of The Associated Press.
A Section on 03/30/2020