THE US may not be able to lower the coronavirus infection rate which has seen up to 39,000 cases a day, an ex-FDA chief has warned.

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb described the rate of infection as the "new normal" in a grim prediction.

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Speaking on NBC, Dr Gottlieb said he expects cases to creep back up again as some states begin to reopen – such as Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

He said: "I think that we need to understand this may be the new normal.

"We may not be able to get transmission down much more. I hope we can."

It comes as President Donald Trump is planning to wind down the coronavirus task force – led by Mike Pence – and replace it with a new advisory body to move the US into phase two.

The United States has been the worst impacted country in the world from coronavirus, with more than 1.2million cases and more than 72,000 deaths.

Dr Gottlieb said: "The most likely scenario is that cases go up, not down.

"And so we need to think about what it looks like in the country if we have transmission of this virus and we try to get back to some sense of normalcy."

Dr Gottlieb resigned from the FDA last year to spend more time with his family.

The expert explained it had been expected that the US would have seen a decline in cases at some point, but this hasn't happen as the virus spread and more people were tested.

He said America continues to experience a "high level of infection" – with dips in states like New York being offset as cases go up elsewhere in the US.

The US has not dipped beneath 20,000 cases a day since March 28, and it peaked at 38,953 daily cases on April 23.

Numbers since have continued to fluctuate between lows of 23,196 on April 21 and highs of 36,007 on May 1.
States are being infected at different rates amid localised outbreaks, with the worst impacted being New York with 330,139 total cases and New Jersey with 131,705.

The infection figures in New York alone are 70,000 higher than any other country in the world.

Illinois, Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania also have total infection rates above 50,000.

And 15 states have case numbers over 10,000.

Mr Gottlieb said: "As we go through May, we're likely to see the case count start to creep back up again.

"There's about 20 states where cases are going up on a daily basis, and so are hospitalizations."

He explained forecasts for the virus are "imprecise" – and said you cannot wait to see what happens, you have to take action.

It comes as an internal Trump administration memo predicted up to 200,000 cases daily by the end of June, and a daily death toll of 3,000 from June 1, reports the New York Times.

President Trump has said the US is moving into phase two of the pandemic, saying "our country is now in the next stage of the battle" and insisting the time is right to reopen.

Dr. Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the White House's response, said her prediction had always been up to 240,000 Americans could die even with "full mitigation".

President Trump however has given a lower estimate, saying "we’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people".

He added: "That’s a horrible thing. We shouldn’t lose one person over this."

Protests have been mounted across the US from people who are demanding an end to the lockdown.

The President defended his move to shut the country, saying the US would have lost "a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum".

Mr Trump also continues his attacks on China, who he has accused of covering up their case count but says they didn't allow the virus to spread "on purpose".

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