March 17, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - An alarming scientific report compiled by British researchers and shared with the Trump White House warns that, in the absence of drastic and coordinated government action, the novel coronavirus could kill as many as 2.2 million people in the United States alone.

The new research (pdf), led by epidemiologist Dr. Neil Ferguson and published Monday by the Imperial College of London, shows that merely acting to slow rather than completely stop the spread of COVID-19 would "still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over."

"For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option," the researchers wrote. "In the U.K. and U.S. context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases, and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures."

Successful suppression of the virus could take a significant amount of time, the researchers noted—"potentially 18 months or more."

The New York Times reported late Monday that the researchers' "terrifying" projection of as many as 2.2 million possible deaths in the U.S. was shared with the White House's coronavirus task force last week, when President Donald Trump was still downplaying the threat posed by the COVID-19 outbreak