Dr. Anthony Fauci Estimates That Coronavirus Deaths In The U.S. Could Top 200,000

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, MD, predicts that coronavirus deaths could reach 200,000 in the United States

Over the weekend, the number of reported cases of COVID-19 has continued to climb, doubling in just two days. However, according to experts in the center of our nation’s battle against the highly infectious and deadly disease, this is only the beginning. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci has estimated that the domestic novel coronavirus death toll could be close to 200,000.

During an interview on CNN‘s State of the Union, Dr. Fauci discussed the current, extremely grim situation in the United States, where a total of 125,000 cases have been confirmed so far with more than 2,000 deaths.

“Looking at what we’re seeing now, we’re looking at 100,000 to 200,000 [deaths]…but I don’t want to be held to that,” Dr. Fauci told CNN. “But I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target that you could so easily be wrong.”

He also discussed how he talked President Donald Trump off a ledge in regards to quarantining regions of the United States where the virus is centralized — including New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York. He also confirmed that an estimated 56 percent of new infections in the country are coming from New York City.

“After discussions with the President we made it clear and he agreed, it would be much better to do what’s called a strong advisory. The reason for that is you don’t want to get to the point that you’re enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal,” he continued.

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory, encouraging residents of the three states to “refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.” However, it gave the states “full discretion” on implementing the advisory.

“What you don’t want is people traveling from that area to other areas of the country and inadvertently and innocently infecting other individuals,” Fauci explained. “We felt the better way to do this would be an advisory as opposed to a very strict quarantine. And the President agreed, and that’s why he made that determination last night.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also made an appearance on Jake Tapper’s show, directly expressing her disappointment with how President Trump has handled the pandemic. “As the president fiddles, people are dying,” she declared.

“The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly,” she said. “His delaying of getting equipment to where — it continues — his delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly. And now I think the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life, rather than open things up.”

She emphasized the need for “testing, testing, testing” going forward.

“This is such a tragedy. We don’t even know the magnitude of it because we don’t have adequate testing.”

Information about COVID-19 is rapidly changing, and Scary Mommy is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. With news being updated so frequently, some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For this reason, we are encouraging readers to use online resources from local public health departments, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization to remain as informed as possible.