Coronavirus: US health officials see spread slowing, but warn Americans to ‘brace themselves’ for the next two weeks

Models show US death toll rising to as many as 240,000 as coronavirus enters its deadliest period

Rate of increase in states of California and Washington show that mitigation measures are working

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Models suggest the US death toll from Covid-19 could rise to 240,000 as the contagion enters its deadliest period. Photo: AP

Published: 7:52am, 1 Apr 2020Updated: 8:33pm, 1 Apr 2020

The US team directing the effort to curb the surge in coronavirus cases said on Tuesday that relatively moderate increases in the states of California and Washington suggest that social distancing measures will help shorten the contagion’s spread in the country, while cautioning that the number of fatalities will continue to increase for the next two weeks.

The US death toll could rise to a range of 100,000 to 240,000, according to models the White House task force is tracking, but could end up lower if people strictly maintain mitigation measures that have been in place since mid-March, based on the experience of the two west coast states.

“What we’re going to see, and that’s why we’ve got to brace ourselves in the next several days to a week or so, we’re going to continue to see things go up,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work.”

The task force is “very much focused on the next two weeks, and the stark reality of what this virus will do as it moves through communities,” said Deborah Birx, deputy to US vice-president Mike Pence on the team.

“I’m reassured by looking at the Seattle line, by looking at the LA line, by looking at what California has been able to do,” Birx said, referring to charts showing the number of infections in California and Washington significantly more flat compared to New York.

A slide show at the White House briefing charted US coronavirus cases in March. Photo: Handout

Birx and Fauci said testing and mitigation measures were put into place in the two states earlier than they were throughout the rest of the country.

California and Washington state confirmed their first cases of Covid-19 contracted through “community spread”, or without any known connection to a region badly affected by the disease, in the last week of February.