Global confirmed virus death toll passes 40,000 – as it happened

Helen Sullivan with you here. This blog is now closed. We have launched a new coronavirus live blog – where I’ll be bringing you the latest in this unprecedented crisis for the next few hours – at the link below.

We’ll be leaving this press conference soon as nothing much new is being said, and Trump continues to pat himself on the back.

He says nobody knew how contagious the virus was.

Asked whether he lulled people into a false sense of security Trump responds, “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month.”

Asked about homelessness in California, Trump takes the opportunity for a swipe against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “I’m not sure if she cares, she has it at a very high level in her district,” he says.

“Who would ever think you’d need 16,000 ventilators?” Trump asks.

He also, despite repeatedly criticising New York’s response, says he has a good relationship with the state. “We’re dealing with New York,” he says.

A reminder we’re with US president Donald Trump’s White House press briefing now, following the prediction that US deaths could reach 240,000.

The toll will be between 100,000 and that number, according to White House modelling.

Trump has called 100,000 a very low number. That figure was presented as a “goal” on a graph displayed by the coronavirus task force.

You can tune in live here:

“Do you ever run out of questions, you people?” Trump asks a room full of reporters.

Trump is talking about the impeachment. “They probably illegally impeached me... you don’t hear much about that nowadays because everyone’s talking about the virus,” which he is happy about, the US president says.

“The democrats their whole live their whole being their whole existence was to try and get me out of office any way they can even if it was a phony deal.”

Fact check: Hydroxychloroquine cure

Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, asserting that it won’t kill people because it has already been to treat other conditions. But the drug can have serious side effects even when it is used as recommended, to treat malaria, as well as lupus and arthritis.

Moreover, public health experts including his own top infectious diseases adviser, Dr. Fauci, have previously warned that there was only “anecdotal evidence” that the drugs could be helpful. My colleague Oliver Milman reported that a French study of 40 coronavirus patients found that half experienced clearing of their airways after being given hydroxychloroquine. Experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigor to be classed as evidence of a potential treatment. The French health ministry has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.

The surge in demand for the unproven hydroxychloroquine also risks shortages of the drug for those who need it most. It is used to help patients manage the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, but some are already complaining the drug is harder to come by. Trump’s pushing of the treatment has reportedly caused stockpiling of hydroxychloroquine.

Trump says: “I do think we were very early but we also were very smart. Because we had never done that before we had never closed our borders before... we also stopped Europe very shortly after... I stopped them a long time before anyone started stopping people anywhere.”

If we had had adequate testing would we have known? the reporter asks.

Pence says Trump’s initial efforts were designed to prevent the virus from entering the US and that they have been told that bought the country significant time.

“If I can also say to every American all the questions about resources are very important,” and that the president is working very hard to address the issue of resources.

He says if Americans can practice social distancing and other measures for 30 days it will make a significant difference to the crisis.

Dr. Birx is speaking now.

She says that it’s not possible to answer the reporter’s question until antibody testing is possible.

“We need to see was the virus circling in February, in early March.”

She says her and Dr. Fauci is focussed on getting testing to determine that.

“If there was no virus in the background there was nothing to mitigate,” Dr. Fauci jumps in to say.