The death projections of University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which the White House uses, and which is the most conservative forecasting program used by the CDC, pegs the number of American dead by October 1st at north of 175,000. They use that date because it’s estimated that this will be the point in time when Covid 19 will reignite in a 2nd wave, and how the U.S. will be prepared for it when this occurs is more guesswork than science, so projecting any further is too unreliable a prospect.
IHME’s death projections, since the start of the pandemic, have been consistently short of the mark, and have had to be continuously revised upward, as the U.S. has consistently failed to meet the assumptions built into IHME’s protocol (like social-distancing and mask-wearing being rigorously observed, and economic lockdown restrictions being followed). It has also failed to take into account widespread stupidity and lying political leaders, but these are variables too difficult to quantify. The result being, IHME’s death projection is always lower than what has actually occurred.
I avoid making Covid 19 death projections for 2 reasons: 1. I lack the necessary variable data to come close to being accurate; and 2. When I’ve tried, the result is usually just too depressing. However, given the insistent fact-avoidance that prevails here, and on the other sites where I post Covid 19 data, and the fact that this is the only time left to all Americans to prepare for what is almost certain to be a catastrophic Fall and Winter, I’ve used the most basic data sets to make what I consider to be the most conservative death projections I can produce.
I’ve focused here on the southern states because, as the explosion of new Covid 19 cases has happened there, it appears that these states have the most work yet to do; and, as worrisome as the projections may be, these may not even be worst case scenarios, given that stupidity and data falsification continues unabated. The projections below are based on the current numbers of active Covid 19 cases, and the rates of non-survival for each state. Such numbers are bound to change, from day to day, as the numbers of dead increase, and active cases increase or decrease.
IHME’s death projections, since the start of the pandemic, have been consistently short of the mark, and have had to be continuously revised upward, as the U.S. has consistently failed to meet the assumptions built into IHME’s protocol (like social-distancing and mask-wearing being rigorously observed, and economic lockdown restrictions being followed). It has also failed to take into account widespread stupidity and lying political leaders, but these are variables too difficult to quantify. The result being, IHME’s death projection is always lower than what has actually occurred.
I avoid making Covid 19 death projections for 2 reasons: 1. I lack the necessary variable data to come close to being accurate; and 2. When I’ve tried, the result is usually just too depressing. However, given the insistent fact-avoidance that prevails here, and on the other sites where I post Covid 19 data, and the fact that this is the only time left to all Americans to prepare for what is almost certain to be a catastrophic Fall and Winter, I’ve used the most basic data sets to make what I consider to be the most conservative death projections I can produce.
I’ve focused here on the southern states because, as the explosion of new Covid 19 cases has happened there, it appears that these states have the most work yet to do; and, as worrisome as the projections may be, these may not even be worst case scenarios, given that stupidity and data falsification continues unabated. The projections below are based on the current numbers of active Covid 19 cases, and the rates of non-survival for each state. Such numbers are bound to change, from day to day, as the numbers of dead increase, and active cases increase or decrease.