Trump has since walked back the Easter deadline, and his administration is now calling for social distancing until at least April 30. But the president’s sentiments clashed with public-health officials, who used the model presented Tuesday to persuade him to change course. Trump initially wanted to open parts of the US by Easter, fearing the shutdowns and stay-at-home orders were causing severe damage to the economy.
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“We can influence this to varying degrees.” Staying shut down past Easter “This is a number that we need to anticipate, but we don’t necessarily have to accept it as being inevitable,” he said. When the increase in cases begin to level off, the secondary effect is less hospitalizations, the next effect is less intensive care, and the next effect is less deaths.”įauci stressed that the numbers were predictions that may not necessarily come to pass. “What you have is increase in new cases at a certain rate. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during the presentation. “We are really convinced that mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us,” Dr. Some states have been able to curb the number of coronavirus cases more than others. The White House ‘Mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us’īirx then provided data from different states, saying it provided “great hope about what is possible.” Washington state and California, in particular, appear to have the virus under control through widespread testing and containment measures. Deborah Birx presented a model showing that coronavirus deaths would rise significantly if community mitigation were to stop. She has used the model to help convince President Donald Trump to support the continued shutdown, The New York Times reported.ĭr. “It’s very much focused on the next two weeks and the stark reality of what this virus will do as it moves through communities,” Birx said as she presented the data to reporters. With actions to stop the virus’s spread, US deaths are projected to number between 100,000 and 240,000 people, which Birx said was “still way too much.” Mitigation steps include people washing their hands, not touching their faces, staying in their homes, gathering only in groups of fewer than 10 people, and limiting travel. The presentation showed that between 1.5 million and 2.2 million people would die without mitigation.
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Deborah Birx, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts against the coronavirus pandemic, presented the data during a White House press briefing on Tuesday.