Washington—Between 70 to 150 million people in the United States could eventually be infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a projection shared with Congress, a lawmaker said Thursday.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made the remarks during a hearing of the House of Representatives with members of the president’s coronavirus task force, confirming earlier reports by US media outlets including Axios and NBC News.
“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,” Tlaib said.
Meanwhile, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced Friday it had received emergency approval from US regulators for a new and much faster test for diagnosing the deadly new coronavirus.
The US Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to commercialise the SARS-CoV-2 Test to detect the virus that has sparked the global COVID-19 pandemic, Roche said in a statement.
The test can be run in high volumes on fully automated equipment, Roche said, suggesting it could provide more results far faster than other tests available.
“We are increasing the speed definitely by a factor of 10,” Thomas Schinecker, head of Roche’s diagnostics unit, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Widespread testing is essential in the race to rein in the spread of the virus, which has so far infected more than 130,000 people and killed nearly 5,000 worldwide.
Axios had reported that doctor Brian Monahan conveyed the projection to Senate senior staff on Tuesday, telling them they should prepare for the worst and offering advice on how to remain healthy.
The upper end of the projection is about 46 percent of the US population of 327 million people. By comparison German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned this week that up to 70 percent of her country’s population could get the virus.
Asked by Tlaib whether he believed the projection was accurate, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told the hearing: “We really need to be careful with those kinds of predictions because that’s based on a model.”
He added that “all models are as good as the assumptions that you put into the model” and that with containment and mitigation the upper end of the projection could be avoided.
About 80 percent of coronavirus cases are mild, and the overall mortality rate is around one percent, according to the latest estimate provided by Fauci to Congress on Wednesday.
At the low end of the projection this would mean about 700,000 deaths. At the high end it would mean 1.5 million deaths.
The new Roche tests, which will also now be available in markets that accept the European CE-mark certification, are run on Roche’s widely available cobas 6800/8800 systems and can provide results within 3.5 hours, the company said.
In a 24-hour period, the largest machines can provide results on up to 4,128 tests, it said.
“It is important to quickly and reliably detect whether a patient is infected” with the virus,” Schinecker said in the statement, insisting that speeding up the process of providing reliable diagnostics was “crucial to combat this serious disease.”
Roche said it would have millions of tests available each month, and that it was committed to pushing the limits of its production capacity and delivering as many tests as possible.
Elsewhere, global stock markets suffered wild swings on Friday over the spiralling coronavirus crisis that has killed nearly 5,000 people and disrupted sport, schools and society across the planet.
The virus has affected all walks of life, not sparing sports stars, celebrities or world leaders, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing he was in self-imposed quarantine after his wife tested positive.
It has also forced the sealing off of entire countries, draconian government measures not seen in peacetime, and the scrapping of global sporting and cultural events from Broadway to basketball.
Japan’s stock market plunged more than 10 percent at its low on Friday, following the worst day on Wall Street since the crash of 1987 as traders scrambled to sell everything on fears the virus will catapult the world into a deep recession.
But the Nikkei rallied to close six percent down on huge volatility as traders weighed emergency big-bang measures by central banks in the United States and eurozone, and government fiscal stimulus packages.
An extraordinary day of trade in Australia saw the main stock market close higher by four percent after falling by eight percent at one point, with some players apparently seeing buying opportunities in the carnage.
Forager Funds’ Steve Johnson described the day’s trade as “completely and utterly nuts”.
The human toll also continued to rise, with nearly 131,500 people infected across 116 countries and territories, and 4,925 dead, according to an AFP tally.
The virus, which first emerged in China in December, has quickly spread around the world even as cases in Asia have levelled out in recent days.
China claimed “the peak” of the pandemic had passed its shores, but infections and deaths jumped dramatically in Italy, Spain and Iran, which announced 75 new deaths on Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said it was “the worst health crisis in France in a century” as he ordered schools and universities closed “until further notice”—following similar moves in many other countries.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a grim warning to the public over the virus, which has predominantly killed the elderly and other people with already weakened immune systems.
“More families, many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time,” Johnson said, as he urged people with symptoms to stay at home.
With countries imposing travel bans—Australia was the latest to recommend citizens reconsider foreign travel—global tourism has ground to a halt, and many people have been left stranded as dream holidays turned to nightmares.
Betul Akcagoz, a tourist from Turkey on holiday in Vienna, told AFP: “So bad. There is nothing to do. I hope we can go back to Turkey because in our country, they said they might close the borders too.”
“I hope they won’t because we don’t want to be stuck here.”
The chaos extended to Europe’s airports, where confused passengers scrambled to redraw their plans after US President Donald Trump this week banned all travellers from mainland Europe for the next 30 days.
“We just got off our plane and we’re going to go straight back—we can’t believe it,” said 29-year-old Tiara Streng, queueing with three friends at London’s Heathrow Airport for a return flight to Colorado.
With authorities warning large gatherings should be avoided during the outbreak that the WHO has officially classified as a pandemic—entertainment venues like Disneyland have been closed and the curtain this week also came down on Broadway.
Ted Levitt, a 63-year-old pensioner came to New York from Maryland with his daughter to watch “Hamilton” and thought the measures were overblown as he learned on Thursday the show was cancelled.
“I think it’s not as bad as they say but I guess you’ve got to stop it somehow. I think everybody’s getting a little bit crazy,” he told AFP.