Trump extends coronavirus safety guidelines as advisers predict soaring US death toll

President Donald Trump extended federal coronavirus safety guidelines Tuesday as White House advisers and scientific models predict up to 240,000 people in the United States could die from the disease.

Trump announced the safety guidelines will be extended until April 30. Those rules include practicing social distancing, avoiding travel, limiting gatherings to 10 people, and staying away from nursing homes.

“Every citizen is being called upon to make sacrifices,” Trump said.

The U.S. has more than 180,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 3,800 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

It will become much worse, officials said. White House health experts cited scientific modeling that shows between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the U.S. could die from coronavirus.

“This is going to be a very, very painful two weeks,” Trump said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it will be important for “hot spot” areas such as New York and New Jersey to recover while preventing other cities from spiking in cases to lower the overall death toll.

“In the next several days to a week or so, we’re going to continue to see things go up,” Fauci said “We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work.”

White House advisers also cited modeling that predicts nearly 84,000 deaths by early August. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine forecasts that the U.S. fatalities will peak at more than 2,200 per day in mid-April.

Trump previously hoped to lift the guidelines by Easter Sunday, which is April 12.

The president first issued 15-day guidelines on March 16.

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Trump extends coronavirus safety guidelines as advisers predict soaring US death toll."