The previous update to the model, published last Wednesday, had projected 67,641 deaths, with an estimate range of 48,058 to 123,157.

The IHME said the increase Monday was attributable in part to “many states experiencing flatter and thus longer epidemic peaks,” as well as data showing that daily coronavirus deaths “are not falling very quickly after the peak, leading to longer tails for many states’ epidemic curves.”

“In combination — less abrupt peaks and slower declines in daily COVID-19 deaths following the peak — many places in the U.S. could have higher cumulative deaths from the novel coronavirus,” the IHME concluded.

President Donald Trump on Monday also altered his own appraisal of the likely U.S. death toll, acknowledging more Americans would perish than he had recently predicted.

“So, yeah, we’ve lost a lot of people. But if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million, we are probably heading to 60,000 to 70,000,” he told reporters at a White House coronavirus news conference.

In an effort to promote his administration’s response to the public health crisis, the president had previously seized upon earlier, less dire estimates provided by the IHME model — touting last week its projection that the coronavirus would kill as few as 60,000 Americans.

“It looks like we’ll be at about a 60,000 mark, which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of,” Trump said during a briefing on April 19, adding the next day that “the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We could end up at 50 to 60.”

But more than 56,000 Americans have already died as a result of the coronavirus as of Tuesday morning, and the total number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has surged beyond 988,000.