Coronavirus: Grim Models Project High U.S. Toll in Months-Long Crisis

Models predicting expected spread of the virus in the U.S. paint a grim picture.

The coronavirus studies that appear to have convinced President Trump to prolong disruptive social distancing in the United States paint a grim picture of a pandemic that is likely to ravage the country over the next several months, killing close to 100,000 Americans and infecting millions more.

Medical workers transferred the bodies of people who had died after contracting the virus to a temporary morgue in Brooklyn on Monday.Credit...Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

White House officials have not specifically said which of several epidemiological models by researchers around the world they used to persuade Mr. Trump to extend federal guidelines that call for people to remain in their homes, limit travel, work from home and refrain from gathering in groups of 10 or more. But the administration’s leading scientists — including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the coronavirus response — have said that several of the publicly available studies generally match their own conclusions about the deadly impact of the virus. via The New York Times