Dr. Fauci predicts America's coronavirus death toll will be '100,000 to 200,000', millions of people will be infected and says lockdowns will NOT be lifted next week like the President wants

Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's foremost infection disease expert, says the United States could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci offered his prognosis in an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning, as the federal government weighs rolling back guidelines on social distancing.

'I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases,' he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. 'We're going to have millions of cases.' But he added 'I don't want to be held to that' because the pandemic is 'such a moving target'. 

The bleak projection comes as the US leads the world in coronavirus infections, with 123,778 reported to date. The nationwide death toll surpassed 2,100 on Saturday, doubling figures reported two days earlier. 

The government is particularly looking at easing restrictions in areas that have not been hard-hit by the outbreak at the conclusion of the nationwide 15-day effort to slow the spread of the virus. 

When asked about whether supported the move, Fauci said he would only support the rollback of social distancing guidelines in lesser impacted areas if there is enhanced testing in place. 

Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's foremost infection disease expert, says the United States could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the coronavirus pandemic

State of the Union

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Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong,” he adds. #CNNSOTU

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8:21 PM - Mar 29, 2020

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Fauci also addressed President Donald Trump's decision not to impose a strict quarantine on parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut after saying he was considering such restrictions on Saturday. 

Fauci said it was important not to enforce something that would create 'a bigger difficulty', and instead issue a travel advisory for the New York metro area. 

'After discussions with the President we made it clear and he agreed, it would be much better to do what's called a strong advisory,' he said. 

'The reason for that is you don't want to get to the point that you're enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal.'  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its travel advisory late Saturday, urging residents of the three states to 'refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately'.

'What you don't want is people traveling from that area to other areas of the country and inadvertently and innocently infecting other individuals,' Fauci said. 

'We felt the better way to do this would be an advisory as opposed to a very strict quarantine. And the President agreed, and that's why he made that determination last night.' 

Fauci noted that about 56 percent of the country's new infections are coming from the New York City area, where 30,765 cases and 672 deaths have been reported. 

While the Big Apple leads the nation in cases by a significant margin - several other cities including Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Boston are now being monitored as potential hotspots. 

Dr Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday morning and warned that no area will be spared by the pandemic. 

'Every metro area should assume that they will have an outbreak equivalent to New York,' Birx said.  

She said the Trump administration is working hard to push supplies such as ventilators out to affected areas to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed - as many across the country are already complaining of dangerous shortages. 

'Hospitals are so busy taking care of the people who are ill, they can't be spending time doing inventory,' Birx said. 'We need to help and support that.'

'The sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and ensure that they have put in full mitigation ... then we'll be able to move forward,' she added.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expressed similar concern for new hotspots.  

Dr John Brooks, head of the CDC's Epidemiology Research Team, said that the US is still 'in the acceleration phase' of the pandemic and that all corners of the country are at risk.

'There is no geographic part of the United States that is spared from this,' he said.

Some experts have said that outbreaks in other parts of the country could be even more devastating than the ones seen in New York City because they are less prepared.    

'I'm worried that New York might not be the worst-case scenario when you think about other states that have even older and less-healthy populations, and fewer hospital beds available,' Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has developed modeling tools designed to help public officials prepare for the spread of COVID-19, told The Washington Post.