According to IHME, we're not out of the woods yet.
A new model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is projecting that the United States' COVID-19 death toll could reach 147,000 by August 4. This is roughly 70,000 more deaths by August 4 than was projected a little over a month ago.
Screenshot of IHME report
Based in Washington state, the IHME is an independent population health research center that "provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world's most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them." Using data from the American Hospital Association, the World Health Organization, hospital networks, local and national governments, and other sources, IHME has created this model forecasting the timeline of the toll that COVID-19 could have on the nation as a whole, as well as individual states.
Screenshot of IHME report
The model fluctuates and changes based on current data. The increase in the projected death toll from previous models is largely due to the relaxed social distancing policies, according to Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the IHME.
“When we started off making projections, we had assumed that all the states were going to sort of follow the New Zealand model, which is to keep social distancing in place until transmission gets to a very low level,” Murray told CNN. “We’re not doing that. We’re speeding towards relaxing social distancing .... And I think we’ll see the numbers go up unless we see the benefits of people being cautious, wearing masks – and capacities to test, contact trace and isolate go up faster than we think they may.”
Individual State Projections
Each state's projected timeline is different, depending on population, its available resources, and the rate of the virus's spread. You can access all the IHME state projections here, but here are a few states' results:
California
- deaths as of May 12: 2,904
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 5,832
- deaths as of May 12: 1,026
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 1,641
District of Columbia
- deaths as of May 12: 345
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 648
Maryland
- deaths as of May 12: 1,732
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 3,799
New York
- deaths as of May 12: 27,837
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 34,068
Texas
- deaths as of May 12: 1,167
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 3,092
Virginia
- deaths as of May 12: 918
- total projected COVID-19 deaths by August 4, 2020: 1,944
What do you think of the changes in the model? Leave a comment to get the conversation started!
