Trump used to say the coronavirus would kill as many as 60,000 Americans, but we've surpassed that number and Trump has moved the goal posts to 100,000.
Now, 100,000 is a lot, but we're inching closer to that number now and, according to the New York Times, Trump's regime expects much worse than that.
As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.
The projections, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.
The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.
There's a very large degree of uncertainty in the CDC's projections beyond the end of this current month, but even on the low end these projects could mean we'll see up to 200,000 deaths or more, not 100,000.
So, while Trump is publicly saying 100,000 will die, the White House is privately discussing much higher numbers.
We may hit 70,000 deaths as soon as tonight or tomorrow so Trump's public projection of 100,000 is definitely going to happen, but it's not going to stop there.
Reopening parts of the economy is going to provide very little economic benefit because consumer demand will remain very weak and it's going to come at a very high human cost. There just doesn't appear to be any quick way out of this.