THE coronavirus death toll in the United States will surpass 100,000 by June 1, the CDC director said on Friday.

The grim forecast comes after President Donald Trump initially said the number of COVID-19 deaths would not reach six figures.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said that 12 forecasting models used in the United States that are tracked by the CDC are predicting an increase in deaths over the coming weeks.

Dr. Redfield made the grim announcement in a tweet.

As of Friday, more than 1.4 million people in the United States have been infected with the novel coronavirus, which has resulted in more than 87,000 deaths, Johns Hopkins University report.

According to the CDC's website, "state-level ensemble forecasts indicate that states with low numbers of deaths reported to date are not likely to see a rapid rise in the coming weeks."

It was warned, however, that states that already have high numbers of deaths reported to date are likely to see substantial increases.

The models used have varying assumptions about social distancing interventions, with the forecasts showing the cumulative COVID-19 deaths since February

At the beginning of April, President Trump predicted the number of deaths from the novel coronavirus would be "substantially under" early estimates of 100,000 – a stance he later revised.

Earlier this month, Trump said the total number of deaths in the United States would "hopefully" be under 100,000.

While the CDC has made such a prediction, figures from Johns Hopkins University show that the number of new COVID-19 cases each day is going down in more than half of the U.S. states.

Twenty-eight states have seen a reduction in the number of new cases, but Texas has seen its new cases increase between 20 and 30 percent since lifting its stay-at-home order, on May 1.

Seven states are currently experiencing upward trends.

In an announcement on Friday, President Trump unveiled "Operation Warp Speed," a team who will push to deliver a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.

Dr Moncef Slaoui, the ex-head of GlaxoSmithKline's vaccines division, and Gustave Perna, a four-star Army General, will head the operation, Trump announced.

Trump hopes that by using Operation Warp Speed, a coronavirus vaccine will be developed sooner than the 12- to 18-month timeframe that has previously been predicted.

The president also suggested that states such as New York and New Jersey will have "first dibs" on a vaccine once it's created.

According to the World Health Organization, there are currently 118 potential vaccines in the works.

Eight of these vaccines have reached the clinical trial stages.

The most advanced vaccines are from the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, according to reports.

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