Donald Trump said this, among other things, at a White House briefing today on the coronavirus pandemic:

The modeling estimates that the peak in death rates is likely to hit in two weeks. I will say it again. The peak, the highest point of death rates, remember this, is likely to hit in two weeks … Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30, to slow the spread.

Are we clear? Here’s what it means to me. The Easter timeline that Trump had laid out for a possible return to “normal” economic behavior is a goner. Easter arrives on April 12.

The president today said that the Easter recommendation was an “aspirational” date. He “aspired” to return to normal activity by that date. Trump denied ever suggesting it would be a firm date. Whatever it was, the Easter suggestion received plenty of push back from medical professionals who interpreted it as more than “aspirational” and said it was unrealistic to expect any sort of relaxing by the time of the holy holiday.

What now?

I’m going to heed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s pearl of wisdom about timelines. He said that the coronavirus doesn’t heed human estimates on when things would occur; the virus sets its own timeline. Fauci, the nation’s premier infectious disease expert, knows his business, which means that we need to heed all the estimates that come forth with a serious dose of skepticism.

As for any talk of the pandemic lessening, subsiding, dissipating … it ain’t happening, at least not in the immediate future.

I fear we have a lot more pain ahead of us. As for when we know when the end of the pandemic is at hand, well … none of us ever has lived through anything like this. I just hope we will know it when it gets here.