SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the keep-your-distance-and-wear-your-mask dept.
In June, IHME predicted that the death toll in the U.S. would reach 200,000 by October, which appears to be on track.
[...] IHME previously projected 317,697 deaths by Dec. 1. The model now predicts that the daily death toll could rise to nearly 3,000 per day in December, up from over 800 per day now, according to Hopkins data.
[...] The most likely [IHME] scenario estimates that Covid-19 will kill 410,450 people in the U.S. by Jan. 1. The worst-case scenario, which assumes that restrictions and mask directives will ease, projects up to 620,028 people in the U.S. will die by then and the best-case scenario, which assumes universal masking, predicts that 288,380 people in the U.S. will die from Covid-19 in 2020.
[...] Despite the drop in new cases, the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 everyday in the U.S. has remained high, at nearly 1,000 new deaths per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
[The 9/11 terrorist attacks caused 2,977 deaths; the current US COVID-19 fatality rate is like having two 9/11 attacks each week. --Ed.]
(Score: 4, Informative) by chr on Sunday September 06 2020, @12:46AM
Incorrect.
The death rate may well be slowly decreasing, but it's currently likely closer to 2-4 per day, i.e. about 0.2-0.4/1M. This is according to the most recent information from the swedish public health agency, "Folkhälsomyndigheten" (FHM).
On the topic of incorrect, e.g. the site worldmeters.com has an incorrect value for the size of the swedish population, so the total number of deaths/capita, confirmed by lab tests, is currently about 5837/10.3 M = 567 deaths/M. If excess deaths are used instead, the rate comes to about 635/1M.
The graphs by FHM typically shows death rate by _date-of-death_ (rather than by _report-date_). For such graphs, the data for the most recent time period are incomplete due to lag in reporting deaths. For Sweden you have to go back about 10 days before you can expect most deaths to have been included in the data. That there's lag in reporting is no different from any other country.
Further, Sweden is not near herd immunity according to FHM, where e.g. the state epidemiologist (Tegnell) has repeatedly stated a vaccine will be necessary to reach herd immunity at a national level. This is even though Covid-19 affects the population in a very heterogeneous way, i.e. cluster outbreaks, that effectively reduce the percentage needed for herd immunity. Tegnell has however said that he thinks the level of infections in e.g. Stockholm locally does contribute to reducing the effective reproduction rate, R_e. Anyway, the important point is that there's lots of population groups -- like old people -- who are completely unprotected, and where the illness would wreak havoc.
That said, FHM is not expecting a big second wave, but instead more localized / smaller outbreaks. What the toll will be from that will largely depend on how well the population (in the affected areas) are able to continue with measures such as social distancing and staying home in case of any symptoms. This is then, or is then to be, combined with testing. The positive cases are to be inputs to contact tracing. Currently only some swedish regions are doing that fully, namely regions with fewer cases and available resources for contact tracing.