“We’re going to lose anywhere from 75-, 80- to 100,000 people. That’s a horrible thing. We shouldn’t lose one person over this. This should’ve been stopped in China, “ Trump said.

“I really think the public has been incredible. that’s one of the reasons we're successful. If you call losing 80- or 90,000 people successful. But it is one of the reasons that we’re not at the high end of the plane, as opposed to the low end of the plane,” he added.

In a press briefing on April 20, Trump said: “We did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead.  Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people.  One is too many.  I always say it: One is too many.  But we’re going toward 50- or 60,000 people.  That’s at the lower — as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people.  We — we could end up at 50 to 60.”

The United States has so far reported more than 1,188,000 infections, with at least 68,600 deaths.