White House task force projects 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in U.S., even with mitigation efforts

[Javaman]

Source: Washington Post

The White House coronavirus task force on Tuesday presented a grim picture of where the U.S. could be heading over the next couple of months, even with interventions like physical distancing. The task force projects 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the virus, with mitigation.

Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, the leaders of the task force, emphasized that although the projections were likely based on the data that they have seen from the hardest hit locations so far, they were hopeful that they could prevent such a high number of deaths.

“Whenever you’re having an effect, it’s not time to take your foot off the accelerator, and on the brake, but to just press it down on the accelerator,” Fauci said of the mitigation efforts. “And that’s what I hope. And I know that we can that do over the next 30 days.”

more at link..

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/31/coronavirus-latest-news/

---

no words.

[Turbineguy]

1. Trump has to be hoping

the ultimate death toll in India will be worse.

Of course, maybe he wants to win.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. They edge the projections upward day by day, week by week

Many people publicly mentioned much higher figures a month or more ago. 1-2million was easily calculable using past pandemics, population, and lack of mitigation.

So they're just using these task force leaders to inch up the numbers and hope the public forgets that Trump screwed up everything by trying to wish it away as "nothing".

More lies every day

[Dan]

8. I remember reading that some organization in Europe

Provided the U.S. government that we should expect to have between 700,000 to 2.2 Million deaths.

Hopefully that was the worse case.

[Igel]

15. Imperial College.

Published paper. Somebody on staff merely read it.

I did, too, but I'm not on staff. Just bored.

[Generic Brad]

14. Yesterday 100,000 deaths was Trump'a measure of success

This morning it was 140,000 - 200,000. This evening it’s 100,000 - 240,000.

That fucker is normalizing horror and expecting us to thank him that it wasn’t 2,500,00 deaths.

[Igel]

16. You're going to hear all kind of estimates.

They're sensitive to starting conditions.

They're sensitive to any changes in the slope--because it's like every point is a new starting condition.

Only after the fact does it look like the curve is inevitable.

Imperial College had 2.2 million if absolutely nothing was done. 100k is low--and temporary. Most forecasts are really ugly if you look past July.

[pat_k]

18. IHME project updates as data added

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at University of Washington has a project team working on projecting hospital resource requirements and shortages that must be addressed (USA and state-specific). Models appear to take into account dates of "lock downs" and are frequently updated.

They also project number of deaths.

Current projection:
93,765 (range 41,000 to 177,000). This projection is up from 83,000 earlier today
-- assumes continuation of social distancing and precautions in place.

Projections site
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Methods
http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/forecasting-covid-19-impact-hospital-bed-days-icu-days-ventilator-days-and-deaths

Latest update notes:
http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates

[Generic Brad]

20. Trump is using these estimates as measures of his success though

It makes sense to me that the estimates shift. But his measure of success is a sliding scale of colossal failure.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Half the US fatalities of WWII in the upper bound.

Fucking hell.

[BigmanPigman]

7. Spanish flu: more deadly than World War I

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-03-spanish-flu-deadly-world-war.html

"The Spanish flu outbreak 100 years ago is the modern world's deadliest epidemic, its toll of more than 50 million surpassing that of World War I."

"Its high-profile victims reportedly include: ... Donald Trump's grandfather Frederick Trump (1918)"

[erronis]

10. Let's call it the "UK or US 2018 flu" since that's where it likely originated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Guess the know-nothing politicians back then still wanted to point the finger of blame on others.

[Igel]

17. There was a decent summary of why that name stuck.

Mostly dealing with the salience of news. Wilson tamped down talk in the US, most Allies did, too. Spain suffered as much as any, but its press dealt with the consequences openly. So while the death toll was officially squashed in the US, it seemed huge in Spain.

History was fixed to be more factual, Wilson's policies like the Sedition Act were eventually scotched. But the moniker stuck.

The "know-nothing politicians" then are like people today. They know something and confuse that with knowing everything, and really like to control and shape the message to fit their personal truth.

[bluestarone]

4. And THEY say the Dems. were DEATH PANELS???

What a fucking no good bunch of holy fucks.

[Mr.Bill]

5. Heckuva job, Donny. n/t

[Canoe52]

6. So much winning! I'd put money on it being at least twice that before this is all over.

[erronis]

9. 1,500,000. US pop 300M. 50% infection rate. 1% mortality.

Lots of unknowns.

Infection rates seem to be between 30-60% of the population in countries that didn't control early and hard. Guessing that even in the lower percentage countries, these percentages will be eventually be higher since the whole population will likely have the infection. Think measles.

Mortality rates seem to be all over the place depending on the location, age of the population, and health resources. Right now 1% is the lower end for the US.

Some hope for keeping large portions of the population uninfected until a vaccine or cure for the effects can be developed. These are probably 1+ year down the road.

Not having surveillance testing available means that we don't know where we are.

Please tell me I'm wrong.

[tclambert]

13. I'm telling you you're wrong.

Mortality is closer to 2%. Latest figures I have are 183,572 known cases, with 3,668 deaths. My calculator says that comes out to 1.998%. 328.2 million x 50% x 1.998% = 3.28 million.

[Doodley]

21. We don't know what the US mortality rate will be. The figures you are using includes

those who just got the infection who may die next week or in two weeks time. There are a lot of comorbidities in the US population. We are the most obese nation. We don't know how much impact that is going to have.

[Doodley]

22. Germany has been testing around half a million per week, but only has 71k cases. I am not sure if

the infection rate is as high as you suggest.

[LudwigPastorius]

11. Gee, imagine how low that number would have been if Trump had been listening...

to his own intelligence agencies back in January.

He's a monster. This, or something just as bad, was inevitable from the day Trump set foot in the White House.

Trump's narcissism, indifference, and incompetence is going to end up killing 15 to 20 times the number of Americans that died in 9/11, the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina...combined.

Bush should send Trump a thank you card for helping to make his administration's record not-the-worst.

[cstanleytech]

12. Overly optimistic as I suspect it's going to be around 550,000 and

maybe as far as 1 million.

[dalton99a]

19. "I alone can fix it"

[Doodley]

23. Why is it that we don't hear a chorus of calls for everyone to be tested?

We can blame Trump, and with good reason, but what are Democratic lawmakers doing exactly?

We are talking about possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives and yet the nightmare is just being allowed to become a reality with little sense of urgency or passion to prevent it.