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Members of the US Army stack medical supplies.
- The US Army assessed in early February that the coronavirus could kill as many as 150,000 Americans, the Daily Beast reported Thursday, citing an unclassified briefing document.
- The "black swan" or worst-case scenario assessment has become nearly the best-case scenario for the US as the White House warns that the virus may kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans.
- The number of coronavirus cases in the US has already topped 200,000, and more than 5,000 people have died.
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The US Army assessed in early February that the coronavirus could kill as many as 150,000 Americans, the Daily Beast reported Thursday, citing an unclassified briefing document.
The document put together on Feb. 3 by US Army North had a "black swan" assessment that 80 million Americans could be infected, 15 to 25 million could require care, 300,000 to 500,000 could require hospitalization, and 80,000 to 150,000 could die.
While the Army briefing document was reportedly seen by the heads of US Northern Command and US Army North and sent to senior Army leadership, it is unclear if the document was passed further up the chain, the Daily Beast reported.
A "black swan" assessment is basically a worst-case scenario projection.
"The reality of it is that you want us planning for the worst-case scenarios, you want us planning for the what ifs-us thinking ahead into all those things that might and could possibly happen and that's what we've been doing, not only on this particular effort but on a myriad of different threats we face to the homeland," NORTHCOM commander Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy explained at the Pentagon Wednesday.
This worst-case scenario, as the Daily Beast's James LaPorta and Spencer Ackerman noted, is becoming a best-case scenario for the US.
The White House coronavirus task force has assessed that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from the virus, even with ongoing steps to mitigate its effects. The president called the numbers "sobering," as did others on the task force.
"We, as sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it. Is it going to be that much? I hope not," Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert and an important member of the task force, said Wednesday of the possibility of 100,000 Americans dying from the virus. "Being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that that is a possibility, that that's what we will see."
Throughout February and March, President Donald Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat posed by the coronavirus.
In late February, Trump tweeted that "the Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA." A few days later, he said the number of cases in the US was going down and would be "close to zero" in a few days.
The president admitted Tuesday that he had been downplaying the outbreak in the US. "I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible," he said, explaining that he just didn't "want to be a negative person."
There are, according to latest statistics, more than 200,000 cases in the US, and more than 5,000 people have died as a result of the coronavirus. The coronavirus has spread to more than 900,000 people worldwide and claimed over 46,000 lives.
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