President Donald Trump said in a Friday press conference that he now expects "substantially" less than 100,000 people will die of the coronavirus.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration presented figures that indicated that should 100,000 die of the virus that it would be the best-case scenario. But Trump said Friday the country was making "tremendous progress" and that aggressive social distancing orders were working.
Last week, he University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model projected about 100,000 Americans would die of COVID-19, as of Friday morning, that figure had dropped to about 60,000.
The models project that about 2,000 Americans will die of the virus every day through April 17.
Trump will also address the nation as the federal government prepares to send stimulus checks to most Americans in the hopes of boosting the economy. Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin has said he hopes that the funds will arrive in some Americans' bank accounts as early as next week.
On Thursday,
The New York Times
reported that Trump's political allies feared that his daily press conferences — during which he has shared
inaccurate information
and has made
partisan attacks
against Democratic state governors — have become a detriment to his chances of beating presumptive nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 general election. Trump has often touted the "ratings" of the briefings.