Donald Trump has threatened America to be ready for “very, very painful two weeks” as the White House said coronavirus pandemic can take 100,000 to 240,000 lives even if current rules about social distancing are maintained.

The US President Donald Trump spoke during a marathon two-hour briefing. He defended his early handling of the issues and showed models.

He said, “I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks. This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks.”

Trump’s experts said their models displayed between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus even if America keeps maintaining social distancing regulations.

According to the international news agency, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus taskforce response coordinator, said that models show a worst-case scenario of between 1.5m and 2.2m deaths in the US “without mitigation”.

She added, the “mountain” could be reduced to a “hill” that projects 100,000–240,000 deaths – still a staggering total. She stressed that the number could be lower if people changed their behavior.

She displayed a chart in which New York had by far the most cumulative cases, followed by New Jersey, then the other 48 states bunched together. Birx expressed hope that social distancing could prevent major outbreaks in those states.

She said that Early mitigation slowing the spread of disease in California and Washington state “gives us great hope” “It’s communities that will do this. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behavior.”