United States Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has said that a physician for the US Congress has speculated that between 70 to 150 million people in the country would be infected with the novel coronavirus eventually, Agence France Presse has reported.
Tlaib put forth the physician’s concerns during a hearing of the House of Representatives, with members of the president's coronavirus task force on Thursday. She confirmed that the estimates were also reported by Axios and NBC News earlier.
Tlaib said: "Congress's attending physician told the Senate that he expects between 70 to 150 million people to eventually contract the coronavirus in the United States."
Axios had reported that Doctor Brian Monahan conveyed his speculation to Senate senior staff on Tuesday. Monahan also asked the Senate to prepare for the worst.
The upper end of the speculation is around 46 per cent of the US population of 327 million people, according to the AFP report.
According to Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the US needs to be careful with such predictions, which are based on a model.
He added that "all models are as good as the assumptions that you put into the model" and that with precautions and mitigation, the upper end of the speculation could be avoided, AFP report added.
According to US modelling, about 80 per cent of coronavirus cases are mild, with the overall mortality rate between 0.1 and one per cent.
People over 60, those suffering from cardiovascular diseases, diabetics, and people with a weak immunity system are more prone to die of coronavirus.
Fauci noted that a 2014 model by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projected the African Ebola outbreak could affect more than a million people. But this was eventually not the case and the final number was under 30,000, AFP reported.