As of Friday morning, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model at the University of Washington is projecting that 317,312 people could die from the disease – marking an increase of about 8,000 deaths from an earlier estimate the model projected one week ago .
Since January, U.S. health authorities nationwide have identified more than 5 million cases, and more than 180,000 people have died, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The new IHME estimate suggests that the United States could see more than 136,000 additional deaths between now and December, and the daily death rate could rise to more than 2,000 per day.
However, IHME researchers found on their website on Thursday, when updating their model, that “if wearing masks in public increases to 95%, more than 67,000 lives could be saved.”
Another forecast from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the number of U.S. deaths at 19,000 through Sept. 19.
The projections published Thursday predicted 200,292 deaths by September 19, with a possible range of 195,824 to 207,269 deaths.
“State and territory-level ensemble forecasts predict that the number of reported new deaths per week could decrease in 18 jurisdictions. Trends in numbers of future reported deaths are uncertain or are expected to remain stable in the other jurisdictions,” the CDC said in a statement. prediction website.
Unlike some individual models, it projects the CDC’s ensemble forecast for only about a month. The previous ensemble forecast, published on August 20, expected roughly 195,000 deaths from the coronavirus on September 12.
.
