Timeline: The White House's coronavirus death estimate

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From "50 or 60,000 people" to "it could have been millions." Here's how the White House's coronavirus death estimate has evolved.

Transcript

00:00But we would have had millions of deaths instead of — it looks like we'll be at about a 60,000 mark,

00:05which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of.

00:09We're at the lowest of all of the models. I mean, if you look at,

00:14I guess, that 120 — 100,000 to 120,000 people would be at the low side.

00:20They don't talk about deaths being cut down to a level that — actually, tenfold they use.

00:26I got that from one of the very respected media outlets. Tenfold. Cut tenfold.

00:36We have very little problem in this country at this moment.

00:39Five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.

00:46So far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States.

00:52Nobody. And it doesn't mean we won't. And we are totally prepared. It doesn't mean we won't.

01:03But think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people,

01:07and we've lost nobody. And you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.

01:152.2 million people would have died if we didn't do what we're doing.

01:192.2 million people from this. And so, if we can hold that down,

01:26as we're saying to 100,000, it's a horrible number. Maybe even less, but to 100,000.

01:32So we have between 100,000 and 200,000. We all together have done a very good job.

01:40Dr. Fauci, should Americans be prepared for the likelihood that there will be

01:44100,000 Americans who die from this virus?

01:50The answer is yes. As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it.

01:57Is it going to be that much? I hope not. And I think the more we push on the mitigation,

02:04the less likelihood it would be that number.

02:08And we did the right thing because maybe it would have been 2 million people died

02:11instead of whatever that final number will be,

02:14which could be 60, could be 70, could be 75, could be 55. Thousands of people have died.

02:22They had minimum numbers of 100,000. And I think we're going to beat that 100,000 deaths. Can you

02:27believe that? That was a minimum. And if we didn't practice what we practiced, and if they,

02:32if we did it a different way, because we had a maximum of 2.2 million people.

02:38And I think we'll be substantially, hopefully below the 100 number.

02:44And I think right now we're heading at probably around 60, maybe 65,000.

02:51And I think numbers are just coming out where they're estimating 60,000 people will die.

02:56That's horrible. I always say one person is too much, especially in this case,

03:00when it could have been stopped in China.

03:01Now, with all of the death that we've seen at 50 or 60,000 people heading toward,

03:09right now it's at 40, but 50 or 60,000 people, probably over 50 for one to see.

03:16I think we've done a great job. As you know, minimal numbers were,

03:22minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people.

03:26Minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people. And we're going to be hopefully far below that.

03:32So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people, but if you look at what original projections were,

03:392.2 million, we're probably heading to 60,000, 70,000.

03:46People were thinking in terms of 1.5 million lives lost to 2.2 without the mitigation.

03:54And hopefully we're going to come in below that 100,000 lives lost, which is

04:01a horrible number nevertheless.

04:05There were supposed to be 2.2 million deaths. And we're at a point where we're far lower than

04:09that. And it's thanks to the great work of the task force and to the leadership of President Trump.

04:16You look on the screens, you look on television today and you see

04:21body bags and you see mass graves. And we may be talking about 95,000 people. Ultimately,

04:31we may be talking about something more than that.

04:36Numbers were estimated to be 2 million deaths, 1.5 million deaths,

04:41maybe 1 million, but it could have been over 2 million and maybe substantially over.

04:46We would have had, I would say probably 4 million deaths, 3 million deaths, 2 million.

04:56And we have just about the lowest mortality rate. If we didn't do testing, instead of testing over

05:0440 million people, if we did half the testing would have half the cases. If we did another,

05:10you cut that in half, we'd have yet again half of that.

05:14When I turn on the news, I see cases, cases, cases. They don't talk about

05:19deaths being cut down to a level that actually tenfold.

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