IHME now estimating 600,000 US COVID-19 deaths by May 1 (was 350K by Jan)

[essentialsaltes]

The IHME COVID-19 estimates aren't necessarily the best, but they were one of the first and still most accessible models. As of the June 15th update, it predicts just over 200,000 deaths in the US by October 1st.

Other models exist, of course, but it's hard (for me) to see what they project out to October. but they generally agree that by the end of July we may be around 150K.

Back in March, Dr. Fauci was saying 100,000 to 200,000 might die.

"I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases," he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. "We're going to have millions of cases." But he added "I don't want to be held to that" because the pandemic is "such a moving target."

At that time, Trump said that a final US coronavirus death toll somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 people would indicate that his administration has “done a very good job.”

“So if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 [thousand] and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job.”

Trump seemed to be trying to draw a contrast between the scenario where the government literally did nothing and the path America is now on. With his reelection on the line, he set the stage to eventually proclaim that even 200,000 Americans deaths from the coronavirus would be proof that he saved lives.

It seems very likely to me that we will reach that 200,000 deaths by October. And sadly, it won't be over yet.

At the time of posting, the US is #7 in terms of both cases and deaths per capita (for countries over 1 million in population).

 

[Occams Barber]

The IHME COVID-19 estimates aren't necessarily the best, but they were one of the first and still most accessible models. As of the June 15th update, it predicts just over 200,000 deaths in the US by October 1st.

Other models exist, of course, but it's hard (for me) to see what they project out to October. but they generally agree that by the end of July we may be around 150K.

Back in March, Dr. Fauci was saying 100,000 to 200,000 might die.

"I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases," he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. "We're going to have millions of cases." But he added "I don't want to be held to that" because the pandemic is "such a moving target."

At that time, Trump said that a final US coronavirus death toll somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 people would indicate that his administration has “done a very good job.”

“So if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 [thousand] and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job.”

Trump seemed to be trying to draw a contrast between the scenario where the government literally did nothing and the path America is now on. With his reelection on the line, he set the stage to eventually proclaim that even 200,000 Americans deaths from the coronavirus would be proof that he saved lives.

It seems very likely to me that we will reach that 200,000 deaths by October. And sadly, it won't be over yet.

This is the current IHME projection to 1 October based on data to June 12. US deaths are predicted to be in the range of roughly 172,000 to 270,000 with 201,000 as the most likely result.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections
OB

 

[agapelove]

The spikes we’re seeing likely predate all of the protests. States were warned against re-opening and loosening restrictions repeatedly but ultimately gave in to impatient Americans who thought wearing a mask meant infringing on their rights. People really just decided they were done with it. We imploded our economy and skyrocketed unemployment just to say we couldn’t control the virus.

 

[Mayzoo]

The IHME COVID-19 estimates aren't necessarily the best, but they were one of the first and still most accessible models. As of the June 15th update, it predicts just over 200,000 deaths in the US by October 1st.

Other models exist, of course, but it's hard (for me) to see what they project out to October. but they generally agree that by the end of July we may be around 150K.

Back in March, Dr. Fauci was saying 100,000 to 200,000 might die.

"I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases," he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. "We're going to have millions of cases." But he added "I don't want to be held to that" because the pandemic is "such a moving target."

At that time, Trump said that a final US coronavirus death toll somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 people would indicate that his administration has “done a very good job.”

“So if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 [thousand] and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job.”

Trump seemed to be trying to draw a contrast between the scenario where the government literally did nothing and the path America is now on. With his reelection on the line, he set the stage to eventually proclaim that even 200,000 Americans deaths from the coronavirus would be proof that he saved lives.

It seems very likely to me that we will reach that 200,000 deaths by October. And sadly, it won't be over yet.

The actual phase 2 will start about late October or the beginning of November right along with flu season, so we won't even be starting that yet.

 

[Brightmoon]

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

We imploded our economy and skyrocketed unemployment just to say we couldn’t control the virus.

No, we never could control the virus. We skyrocketed unemployment and imploded our economy just to say we tried.

 

[Paulos23]

Somehow, my gut tells me that it is optimistic.

But then I don't have data to back up my gut.

 

[hedrick]

No, we never could control the virus. We skyrocketed unemployment and imploded our economy just to say we tried.

You don’t think the difference between 200,000 and 1 to 2 million is significant?

 

[essentialsaltes]

IHME updated on June 24th, reducing the October death toll to 179,106. I think their model is out to lunch on this one. Will be interesting to see the next update, now that several states and the nation as a whole have had some all time records for new cases.

 

[hedrick]

During the first couple of months, IHME always predicted that cases would fall dramatically starting at whatever date was current. It didn't happen. I think their models have been getting better since then. But they have to make assumptions about behavior. I believe in many areas people are moving more rapidly into risky behaviors than they predicted.

They're showing deaths roughly constant starting now, with the beginning of an upward movement in Sept. But they're also showing cases as roughly constant. It looks to me like they haven't yet taken into account the current increases.

 

[Occams Barber]

IHME updated on June 24th, reducing the October death toll to 179,106. I think their model is out to lunch on this one. Will be interesting to see the next update, now that several states and the nation as a whole have had some all time records for new cases.

I use IHME's projections but I have to admit that they don't inspire confidence. Updating the data is slow and the projections are volatile with significant changes when the data is updated. The current version includes a projection which assumes universal (in the US) mask usage but seems to ignore this in its 'best guess' projections. Why just masks ? - why not assume universal distancing or universal hand washing or all of the above?

I'm not sure that a projection this variable and this vague can be used with real confidence.

OB

 

[essentialsaltes]

IHME updated on June 24th, reducing the October death toll to 179,106.

Updated June 29th, reducing further to 175,168 deaths by October 1.

While I still think this is optimistic, it's interesting to see some changes in the overall pattern. Way back when, IMHE estimates were pretty close to a bell curve, and everything was pretty much over by the end of the forecast period at the tail end of the, er, tail. Now many states are still forecast to have significant deaths at the October 1st cutoff.

As an example, Florida is forecast to have its maximum estimated deaths per day (~200) on October 1st and still rising pretty steeply at that point.

 

[rjs330]

I'm guessing we are going to see shutdown again in many places.

We are already seeing it come back. Governor's are trying to figure out how to do this. Masks seem to be the easiest way to slow this along with the distancing. Masks certainly are not the be all and end all but they are a tool in the war against this.

Social diatancing, washing hands etc still seems to be the best defense.

But I don't think we can stop this. When it got into New York it kinda doomed us, since so much travel goes in and out of there.

 

[wing2000]

But I don't think we can stop this. When it got into New York it kinda doomed us, since so much travel goes in and out of there.

It will take some very tough measures at this point....and looking back, New York could have been controlled if Federal and State governments took aggressive, proactive action to lock down travel in/out of the NYC metro area. At the time, I recall some Americans were uneasy with a single neighborhood locked down....

Our leaders were warned...and in the haste to re-open, many governors ignored the requirements for re-opening laid out by the CDC. Many states simply don't have the resources to perform contact tracing. In Arizona, for example, the health department calls people who test positive...and ask the infected individual to contact everyone he or she may have been in contact with. While that may help others exposed, it does not provide state health authorities the data they need to manage the outbreak.

In the end, our haste will end up costing more.....

 

[Landon Caeli]

Somehow, my gut tells me that it is optimistic.

But then I don't have data to back up my gut.

How could the US have so many more deaths than India?

India has over a 1 billion people with only 16,000 deaths...

United States has only 328 million, with 175,000 deaths...

...I don't get it.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Isn't India's population much more densely packed? This should mean that the virus would spread much more rapidly.

 

[essentialsaltes]

How could the US have so many more deaths than India?

India has over a 1 billion people with only 16,000 deaths...

United States has only 328 million, with 125,000 deaths...

...I don't get it.

India was lucky/well-managed for a while. IIRC, for a time, all of the cases in the country could be traced back to one dance studio that had members that returned from China. The country acted swiftly and decisively, and held things down for quite a while after things got bad in the US.

But inevitably it has slipped out, and they are catching up fast.

And the US had not had a great showing. Per capita the US ranks #7 in terms of both deaths and cases among countries with at least a million people. Some places (including India) may be undertested, but still...

 

[Paulos23]

How could the US have so many more deaths than India?

India has over a 1 billion people with only 16,000 deaths...

United States has only 328 million, with 175,000 deaths...

...I don't get it.

As @essentialsaltes wrote, they managed to act quickly to a superspreader event. But it spreading through societal contact slowly. Plus, this is not their first pandemic I believe. They have people working on this all the time. And there is still generational and personal memory of past pandemics that cause most Indian's to obey government suggestions and orders.

Compared to the US where most states and counts health boards are not that active tracing down pandemic superspreader events, and Americans, in general, do not trust the government even if it is common sense advice.

And the US has done this before. Read up on the 1918 flu and some city health departments just ignored it because they didn't think it was a problem. And people rebelled against mask-wearing and social distancing. I know the Washington State head of the Department of Health got fired for maintaining the order of no social gatherings to long for the state politicians liking. He claimed that there would be more deaths, and he was right.

The USA, as both a country and a people, that does not uniformly learn from our own history.

 

[Landon Caeli]

As @essentialsaltes wrote, they managed to act quickly to a superspreader event. But it spreading through societal contact slowly. Plus, this is not their first pandemic I believe. They have people working on this all the time. And there is still generational and personal memory of past pandemics that cause most Indian's to obey government suggestions and orders.

Compared to the US where most states and counts health boards are not that active tracing down pandemic superspreader events, and Americans, in general, do not trust the government even if it is common sense advice.

And the US has done this before. Read up on the 1918 flu and some city health departments just ignored it because they didn't think it was a problem. And people rebelled against mask-wearing and social distancing. I know the Washington State head of the Department of Health got fired for maintaining the order of no social gatherings to long for the state politicians liking. He claimed that there would be more deaths, and he was right.

The USA, as both a country and a people, that does not uniformly learn from our own history.

So would you have preferred the Indian response over the US one..?

The Callousness of India’s COVID-19 Response

https://twitter.com/i/status/1243161110468890624

 

[Paulos23]

So would you have preferred the Indian response over the US one..?

The Callousness of India’s COVID-19 Response

https://twitter.com/i/status/1243161110468890624

I am not saying I would have preferred the Indian response, just that this is not their first pandemic. Plus there is not a culture of distrusting the government or people being armed. Any cop that tried that in the US would be shot.

I do wish my fellow Americans would look up the 1918 flu and realize many of the guidelines given by the government are based on good reasons and not an infringement of their freedoms.