US predicts doubling of coronavirus cases and deaths

The White House is downplaying a US government report that predicts a doubling of daily COVID-19 deaths in the United States by June 1.

White House spokesman Judd Deere raised concerns Monday about a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that also predicts about 200,000 new coronavirus cases each day by the end of the month, up from 25,000 cases now.

The information is based on a government computer model compiled in graphical form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and published on Monday by The New York Times.

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Deere said that this is not a White House document, was not presented to the coronavirus task force, nor has it gone through the interagency vetting process. “This data is not a reflection of any of the modeling done by the task force or the data it analyzed.”

The spokesman said that "the health of the American people remains President Trump's top priority and this will continue as we monitor states' efforts to ease restrictions."

According to the newspaper, the government report predicts that the number of coronavirus deaths could reach 3,000 a day in four weeks, a significant increase from the current figure of around 1.750 cases.

The United States has sought to combat the spread of the coronavirus for about seven weeks, but President Donald Trump has ended stay-at-home directives that shut down much of the American economy until April.

Many state governors have eased restrictions on business closures since May, allowing hair and nail salons, gyms, restaurants and retail stores to reopen in their states, although thousands of businesses remain closed.

Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Trump administration's Food and Drug Administration, told CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that "while the mitigation didn't fail, I think it's fair to say it didn't work the way we expected it to. We expected at this point that we would start to have more meaningful declines in new cases and deaths across the country. And we're just not seeing that."

Gottlieb said Americans "could face the prospect of 20,000, 30,000 new cases a day diagnosed becoming the new normal."

President Trump once predicted that the number of new coronavirus cases would decline rapidly, but over the past month there have been at least 1.000 people with the virus, and sometimes more than 2,000, deaths each day. He then predicted that the death toll in the U.S. would be between 60,000 and 70,000 people.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial, May 3, 2020, in Washington.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial, May 3, 2020, in Washington.

But in a virtual debate Sunday evening at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Trump said: "We're going to lose somewhere between 75, 80 and 100,000 people. This is a terrible thing."

As the Senate prepares to return on Monday, Trump said the federal government could double the current $3 trillion in emergency aid. So far, those funds have gone to help small businesses stay out of bankruptcy, secure supplies for hospitals and put money in taxpayers' hands.

"There is more help coming," President Trump said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber was returning to continue work on COVID-19, as well as other urgent issues.

Leaders in the House of Representatives have so far not announced plans to meet in Washington, while they are asking congressional doctors to share guidelines on how to do so safely.

The United States leads the world with more than 1.1 million confirmed cases and about 68,000 deaths.

Public health officials have expressed concern about the number of Americans not heeding social distancing orders and states lifting stay-at-home guidelines before there is a sustained decline in the number of coronavirus cases.

This week, more states are joining in easing lockdown restrictions, including Florida's move to allow restaurants and stores to operate while allowing a certain number of people inside starting Monday.

By Tuesday, more than 30 of the 50 US states will allow some form of reopening.

This has been a priority for the Trump administration as economic activity has slowed significantly and more than 30 million people have lost their jobs.