[ad_1]
More than 410,000 Americans could die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, by January 1, 2021, according to the latest model from the University of Washington Institute for Health Assessment and Metrics.
The United States reported more than 188,500 deaths as of Saturday and more than 6,200,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. If the IHME model, released Friday, is correct, that would mean roughly 222,000 more deaths over the next 3 1/2 months.
“We expect the daily death rate in the United States, due to seasonality and declining public surveillance, to reach nearly 3,000 a day in December,” said the institute, which bills itself as a center for independent research, in an update of its periodic forecasts.
It previously projected 317,697 deaths for December 1.
However, the IHME researchers said that if the use of face masks were to become nearly universal, the 222,000 expected deaths could be cut in half. On the contrary, if restrictions are eased, the death toll could be much higher by the new year.
“Increasing the use of masks to the levels seen in Singapore would reduce the cumulative death toll to 288,000, or 122,000 lives saved compared to the baseline scenario,” he said.
“If a strategy of herd immunity is pursued, which means that no further government intervention will be taken from now until January 1, the death toll could rise to 620,000,” according to the IHME report.
Other predictions
The IHME model is one of the most aggressive of the 35 models used to predict deaths from COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set of forecasts, released Thursday, predicted 211,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19 by Sept. 26.
The model’s outlook for the world was even more dire, with deaths projected to triple to 2.8 million by January 1, 2021.
India reported 86,432 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the total infections to 4,023,179, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The United States and Brazil are the only countries that have more cases than India.
The United States leads the world in COVID infections with 6,243,849, while Brazil has 4,092,832, according to Johns Hopkins.
The coronavirus has so brutalized some places in Mexico that local governments have run out of death certificates.
Mexican officials say a million new forms have been printed.
Mexico has recorded 66,851 deaths from COVID-19, placing it only behind the US, Brazil and India in the number of pandemic deaths on the Johns Hopkins list.
The United States recorded 188,507 deaths, Brazil 125,521 and India 69,561, Johns Hopkins said.
Toll for healthcare workers
Amnesty International said this week that 1,320 healthcare workers in Mexico had died from the coronavirus pandemic, the worst in any country in the world.
The Amnesty report highlighted the deadly toll COVID-19 has taken on frontline workers. Overall, at least 7,000 health workers have died from the virus.
According to a Reuters analysis of data from the Mexican government, healthcare workers in that country are four times more likely to die than healthcare workers in the US.
New cases continue to appear in South Korea, which at one point appeared to quell the virus. Authorities said on Saturday that 115 of the 168 new cases were in the Seoul metropolitan area.
New Zealand said on Saturday it had recorded its 24th death from COVID-19. Joseph Williams, a physician and former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, was the 24th victim.
