The Washington Post (3/31, Rucker, Wan) reports, “President Trump and the physicians advising the federal pandemic response on Tuesday delivered a bleak outlook for the novel coronavirus’s spread across the country, predicting a best-case scenario of 100,000 to 240,000 fatalities in the United States and summoning all Americans to make additional sacrifices to slow the spread.” The Coronavirus Task Force “said that community mitigation practices in place for the past 15 days have worked and that extending them is essential,” and “the mathematical modeling the White House presented suggests doing so could save hundreds of thousands of lives.”

Similarly, USA Today (3/31, Fritze) reports that “as many as 240,000 Americans may die from the new coronavirus according to estimates released by the White House on Tuesday, a grim prediction that influenced President Donald Trump’s decision to extend social distancing guidelines.” The piece says “Trump administration officials laid out somber projections to underscore the impact of the nation’s effort to avoid public spaces and groups. Without those changes, between 1.5 million to 2.2 million people could have died, they said.”

The Wall Street Journal (3/31, Leary, Calfas, Ping, Subscription Publication) reports Trump’s comments marked the President’s gravest warning yet about the novel coronavirus pandemic. The country is still projected to see infections peak in about two weeks