3,000: With at least 42 states loosening restrictions to stop the coronavirus, an internal Trump administration projection says the daily death toll in the US may reach 3,000 by June 1st, roughly double the current numbers, The NY Times reports.

  By comparison, 1,248 people Americans died in the last 24 hours.

  The internal document produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says that reported infections might reach 200,000 a day, up from the current 25,000.

  The predictions keep changing but one thing they have in common is that they all predict higher numbers. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now estimates that there will be 135,000 coronavirus deaths in the US by the beginning of August, double its forecast issued on April 17^th.

  The White House was immediately discounting the FEMA estimate, saying it had not been vetted by the coronavirus task force. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman said, “This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed.”

  President Trump is clearly balancing public health against the health of the economy and getting re-elected. Deere said,  “The president’s phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific-driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with.”

  Evidently not if you go by the FEMA estimate.

The Rose Garden: Despite increasingly dire predictions about the pandemic, President Trump continues to present an optimistic front. “We did the right thing and now we’re bringing the country back,” he told The NY Post, which is owned by the same company that owns Fox News.

 And I think there’s a great optimism. I don’t know if you see it, but I think there’s a great optimism now,” Trump said.

  He continues to claim that the economy, which is the worst since the Great Depression, will simply bounce back in the fall. “We’ll open it up and I think your fourth quarter is going to be very good,” he said. 

  Asked about the NY Times story on the projection of 3,000 deaths a day, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it. Nobody told me that. I think it’s — I think it’s false, I think it’s fake news.”

Secondary Syndrome: Fifteen children in New York City have been sent to the hospital with an odd syndrome believed to be related to the coronavirus. The children, ages 2 to 15, have inflammation of the blood vessels, including their coronary arteries, something normally associated with toxic shock or the relatively rare Kawasaki’s disease.

  Similar cases have also appeared in Europe.

Five Eyes: Reports from US intelligence allies known as “The Five Eyes” say the coronavirus originated in a Chinese live animal market, not a science laboratory in Wuhan. The allies, including the US, are Britain,  Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 

  This is contrary to claims by President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who say there is strong evidence that the virus escaped form a Wuhan laboratory and the Chinese covered it up.

  There’s no doubt the Chines delayed sounding the alarm for their own people and the world, but US intelligence says the coronavirus has not been genetically modified and there’s no evidence that it came from a laboratory.

As news agencies report the balance of claims, President Trump tweeted, “MSDNC and FAKE NEWS CNN are going wild trying to protect China!”

The Bulletin Board: Carnival Cruise lines, which became Coronavirus Cruises early in the pandemic, says it will resume cruises on eight of its ships by the end of summer. — South Pointe Park in Miami has been closed again after thousands of people went to the park and mingled without wearing medical masks. — A park ranger in Austin, Texas was pushed into a lake after trying to enforce social distancing in public. — World leaders have pledged $8 billion to develop a coronavirus vaccine, but the Trump administration refuses to kick in. 

The Obit Page: Former professional football coach Don Shula, who won more games as a coach than any other in the NFL, has died at age 90.

  Shula led the Baltimore Colts and the Miami Dolphins, to six Super Bowls, and won two of them with the Dolphins in 1972 and 1973. The Dolphins went undefeated in the 1972 season, despite losing their starting quarterback Bob Griese to an injury.

  In 33 years as a head coach, seven with the Baltimore Colts and 26 with the Dolphins, his teams won an NFL record 328 regular-season games, while losing 156 and tying 6. 

  Shula always drove his players hard and was not a nice guy on the field. “As a younger coach, I was very intense,” he told NY Times columnist Dave Anderson. “Sometimes I was less than understanding. I hope I have been able to balance it out a little, but I also hope that I never give up being intense.”

Social Distancing: In New York, two men armed with silencer-equipped pistols gunned down the 51-year-old head of the Pagan’s Motorcycle Club. The gunmen were wearing medical masks so they wouldn’t spread the coronavirus and accidentally kill someone. 

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