WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States will be "substantially below the 100,000" figure projected by models last week.
"It looks like we're headed to a number substantially below the 100,000, that would be the low mark," Trump told a White House daily briefing on Friday, reported Xinhua news agency.
He said the situation in cities like Detroit and New Orleans appears to be stabilizing.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she is seeing a levelling of the curve in the United States.
She said that a lot of this is due to an improvement of the situation in New York and mitigation steps individuals took in the New York metro area.
However, although flattening the curve may be in process, cases across the United States continue to surge as the country crossed half a million cases with 500,399 confirmed ones, 18,693 deaths and 28,837 recoveries so far.
The gap between deaths in the United States and Italy seems to have narrowed down drastically with the difference of only 156 fatalities as Italy toll mounted to 18,849.
(With inputs from Online Desk)