- The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington released new projections Monday forecasting 134,000 virus deaths by August, nearly double its previous prediction
- Officials said projection is high due to changing social distance policies as states start to reopen
- Also on Monday a Trump administration model projected coronavirus daily death toll to reach 3,000 by June 1
- That number is nearly double the current level of 1,750 deaths a day
- ‘This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force,’ White House said in response to the projections
- Prediction a troubling sign of what could happen when US fully reopens as 24 states begin partial reopening
- Trump has pushed for the economy to get going again but admitted Sunday death toll could reach 100,000
President Donald Trump has dismissed the leaked secret FEMA charts that warn the daily virus death toll will hit 3,000 by June as ‘false’ and ‘fake news’, even though another key COVID-19 model has nearly doubled its fatality projection to over 134,000.
On Monday two staggering coronavirus projections were released including a private model by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that said the daily death toll of COVID-19 will reach 3,000 cases daily on June 1.
That number is nearly double the current level of 1,750 deaths a day from the disease.
When asked about the leaked projection, Trump said: ‘I know nothing about it. I don’t know anything about it. Nobody told me that.’
‘I think it’s – I think it’s false, I think it’s fake news,’ he said in an Oval Office interview with the New York Post, denying the leak but not the numbers themselves.
The White House has said that leaked projection had not been ‘presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through interagency vetting.’
Also on Monday The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (IHME), which is often cited by the White House, released new models that forecast a death toll prediction of 134,475 fatalities by August 4, a major jump from its previous prediction of 72,433 deaths.
Today there are over 69,000 deaths from the virus and over one million cases of COVID-19 across the country.