Coronavirus could claim up to 200,000 US lives: Fauci

WASHINGTON: A senior US scientist issued a cautious prediction on Sunday that the novel coronavirus could claim 100,000 to 200,000 lives in the United States.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads research into infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told CNN that models predicting a million or more deaths were "almost certainly off the chart." "It’s not impossible, but very, very unlikely."

He offered a rough estimate of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths and "millions of cases." But Fauci, a leading member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, quickly added, "I don’t want to be held to that ... It’s such a moving target that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people."