The United States is headed for a 'tough two weeks',
President Donald Trump has warned, advising people to be prepared for the 'hard
days' ahead, as the country fights the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic that
the White House projects could claim one to two lakh lives in the coming weeks.

Trump's remarks came as
Deborah Bix, a member of White House Task Force on coronavirus, based on a
model from actual data from the ground, said the death toll in the US could be
between 1,00,000 to 2,00,000, with the strict implementation of the existing
mitigation measures including social distancing till April 30.
If
no steps were to be taken, the death toll could range between 1.5 million and
2.2 million, Brix said on a day when the confirmed number of coronavirus
infections in the US, according to the Worldometer website, skyrocketed to over
188,000, adding more than 24,000 new cases in a single day and the fatalities
rose to 3,867.
"I
want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,"
Trump told reporters on Tuesday at a briefing which has now become his daily
coronavirus press conference at the White House for more than 10 days.
"We're
going to go through a very tough two weeks and then, hopefully, as the experts
are predicting, as I think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it
so hard, we are going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel.
"But this is going to
be a very painful, very, very, very painful two weeks," Trump said.
In this grim scenario,
where the daily death toll keeps on jumping at an unprecedented rate, and more
than 250 million of the American population has been forced to stay inside
their homes, the president asked his countrymen to be positive and cooperate in
this war against the invisible army of coronavirus.
"I want to give people
hope. I'm a cheerleader for the country," said Trump who is the seeking
his re-election in the November presidential elections.
Campaigning has come to a
standstill and it is unlikely to revive in the next few months.
The social distancing
measures now have been extended for another 30 days till April 30. The country
is expected to face the peak in coronavirus around middle of April.
"We're going through
the worst thing that the country has probably ever seen. Look, we had -- the
Civil War, we lost 600,000 people, right? Here's a thing, had we not done
anything, we would have lost many times that. But we did something, so it's
going to be, hopefully, way under that," he said.
"But you know, we lose
more here potentially than you lose in world wars as a country. So there's
nothing positive, there's nothing great about it, I want to get people in this
country hope. I think it's very important," Trump said.
The United States is in the
midst of a great national trial, Trump said.
This is 'unlike any we have
ever faced before you all see it, you see it probably better than most. We are
at war with a deadly virus', he said.
"Success in this fight
will require the full absolute measure of our collective strength, love, and
devotion. Very important. Each of us has the power through our own choices and
actions to save American lives and rescue the most vulnerable among us; that is
why we really have to do what we all know is right," he said.
"Every citizen is
being called upon to make sacrifices. Every business is being asked to fulfil
its patriotic duty. Every community is making fundamental changes to how we
live, work and interact each and every day, and I wouldn't be surprised to see
this going on long into the future when this virus is gone and defeated,"
the president said.
So far, New York alone
accounts for 75,795 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,550 deaths. As
compared, China from where it all started in November-December time frame had
81,518 cases and 33,05 deaths.
In addition to New York,
till Tuesday nine States had reported more than 5,000 confirmed cases of
coronavirus.
The States being New
Jersey, California, Michigan, Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington,
Louisiana and Pennsylvania. 16 other States had more than 1,000 confirmed cases
of coronavirus.
While the deadly disease
has spread like a wildfire from coast to coast, more than 100 deaths have been
reported in at least eight States of New Jersey, California, Michigan,
Washington, Louisiana, Georgia, and Illinois. New York tops the list with more
than 15,50 deaths.
Members of the White House
Task Force on Coronavirus asserted that they were pulling out all resources to
bring down the projected number of fatalities.
"Our hope is to get
that down as far as we possibly can. The modelling that Dr Birx showed predicts
that number that you saw. We don't accept that number, that that's what's going
to be. We're going to be doing everything we can to get it even significantly
below that," said Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director and a member of the White House Task
Force on Coronavirus.
"This is the thing
that we need to anticipate, but that doesn't mean that that's what we're going
to accept. We want to do much, much better than that," he told reporters
in response to a question.
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