STATEWIDE — According to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, the daily death toll of the coronavirus is expected to reach about 3,000 by June 1 in the U.S.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency predicted the projection based on government models and even stated that there could be up to 200,000 new coronavirus cases each day by the end of the month, reported The New York Times.


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Currently, there is an estimated 25,000 new cases per day and the 3,000 daily death toll estimate is a 70 percent increase from the current number of around 1,750, reported the newspaper.

Many health experts, including those within the Trump administration, have warned that relaxing social-distancing measures and stay-at-home orders may see a second wave of COVID-19.

The White House, meanwhile, was dismissing the New York Times’ story that the administration was projecting the daily death toll to grow once social distancing is relaxed. 

“This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. “This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed.”

Administration officials said the projections assumed that states resumed normal activities immediately, not according to the phased guidelines unveiled by the White House last month.

Many public health experts believe the nation cannot safely reopen fully until a vaccine is developed. President Donald Trump declared Sunday that he believed one could be available by year’s end.

U.S. public health officials have said a vaccine is probably a year to 18 months away. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force, said in late April that it is conceivable, if a vaccine is soon developed, that it could be in wide distribution as early as January.

Meanwhile, a new COVID-19 antibody test is the first to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Antibody tests can tell if people have been infected with the virus and recovered from it. These newly approved tests are made by a New Jersey-based company.

The FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Health evaluated the effectiveness of the tests and gave it the green light.

Other similar tests are currently available, but public health officials warn not all of them are accurate.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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