The White House coronavirus response coordinator said Monday that she is "very worried about every city in the United States" and projects 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths as a best case scenario.
In an interview on "TODAY," Dr. Deborah Birx painted a grim message about the expected fatalities, echoing that without doing any measures they could hit as high as 2.2 million, as coronavirus cases continue to climb throughout the U.S.
"I think everyone understands now that you can go from five to 50 to 500 to 5000 cases very quickly," Birx said.
"I think in some of the metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines" she added.
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Birx said the projections by Dr. Anthony Fauci that U.S. deaths could range from 1.6 million to 2.2 million deaths is a worst case scenario if the country did "nothing" to contain the outbreak, but said even "if we do things almost perfectly," she still predicts up to 200,000 U.S. deaths.
"The best care scenario would be 100 percent of Americans doing precisely what is required, but we're not sure that all of America is responding in a uniform way to protect one another," Birx said, referencing images circulating online of people still congregating in big groups and ignoring CDC guidelines.
On Sunday, Birx said on "Meet the Press" that "no state, no metro area will be spared," a message she reiterated on Monday. Even if metro or rural areas don't see the virus in the community now, by the time it does appear, the outbreak will be significant, she added.