Coronavirus: researchers nearly double US death projection due to easing of lockdowns
- University of Washington model used by White House predicts 135,000 Americans will die through beginning of August
- Internal government data also projects surge in fatalities and infections through May, US media reports say
Nearly 135,000 Americans were forecast to die from Covid-19 through the beginning of August, almost double the last prediction, due to loosening of lockdowns, according to an updated forecast from the University of Washington on Monday.
The university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) said the sharp increase from its last estimate in mid-April reflected rising mobility and the easing of social distancing measures in 31 states by May 11.
Used by the White House, the institute’s models tie the increased deaths to increasing contacts among people that promote transmission of the novel coronavirus, which causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
The revised forecast came after internal US government data projected daily coronavirus case numbers and deaths surging higher through this month, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported on Monday, even as President Donald Trump urged states to ease restrictions aimed at quelling the pandemic.
The Trump administration’s confidential forecast, based on government modelling, projects that the coronavirus will kill 3,000 Americans a day by the end of May, the Times said, up from a current daily toll of around 2,000.
The projections, pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now, the Times said.
The Washington Post reported similarly that a “draft” government document predicted a sharp increase in both known coronavirus infections and deaths beginning around May 14 and escalating to a rate of about 200,000 new cases and 3,000 new fatalities each day by June 1.
100,000 dead Americans: Trump revises US virus toll forecast
The report quoted a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor of epidemiology involved in the work as saying the data contained a wide range of possibilities and modelling and was shown to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention as a work in progress.
Asked about the Times report, White House spokesman Judd Deere said: “This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through inter-agency vetting.”
The coronavirus has infected more than 1.1 million Americans and killed more than 68,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Trump has given varying predictions for the number of people in the United States who will succumb to Covid-19, for which there is no vaccine or known cure.
As recently as Friday the president had said he hoped fewer than 100,000 Americans would die and earlier in the week had talked of 60,000 to 70,000 deaths. But on Sunday night the president acknowledged the death toll may climb much higher.
“We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. That’s a horrible thing,” he told Fox News.
States have felt pressured to ease restrictions on businesses and social life to revive their battered economies, but health experts have urged caution for fear of a resurgence of the virus.
