A new model from the University of Washington School of Medicine predicts that there will be 171,000 more coronavirus deaths in the United States by the start of February next year taking the total to 389,000 (78% more). The model projects that deaths by then could be limited to 314,000 if all the citizens of the US wear masks, however, in the worst-case scenario, where people don’t wear masks, the deaths could reach 477,000.
The same model predicted last week that nearly 395,000 coronavirus deaths could occur by the start of February, but that number was reduced as the coronavirus cases are increasing in young people, who are less likely to die from the virus than the old. The researchers said that the expectation is that the deaths by the virus will stop decreasing and will begin to increase in the next week or two. They further said that the winter surge has started in the US later than in Europe and that even though many states will have reimposed restrictions by the end of the year, still, the daily deaths could exceed 2,000 per day in the month of January.
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Most of the states in the US are reporting an increase in the cases of coronavirus over the country with nearly 60,000 new cases of the virus reported on Wednesday and not less than 56,000 new cases of the virus reported on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Data. As of now, nearly 8 million coronavirus cases have been reported in the country with over 218,000 coronavirus deaths.
As compared to last week 35 states in the country are showing at least a 10% increase in the new cases of the coronavirus and in 7 states the cases have increased by less than 10%. Only 8 states around the US are showing a decrease in new cases as compared to last week, they include Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Alabama, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Texas.
21 states have reached their record for average new cases in a week, since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Those states include Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The country is averaging daily coronavirus cases of 52,345 as of Thursday, which is more than 16% from last week. Health experts are very worried and rightly so by this trend. Professor at Baylor College of Medicine Dr. Peter Hotez said that the fall and winter are going to be pretty bad and these trends are an ominous sign of that. He further said that he is very worried about the US, as the country could be heading towards maybe the worst period in the modern history of the public health of America.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci also considers this trend very concerning and said that as the country is entering in the cooler seasons of winter and fall, the cases of the virus should be decreasing and not the other way around as it is a very compromised position to be in.
The people of the United States need to be responsible now to overcome this grim period and should think about what they can do as individuals. They should also think that whether their actions contribute to the virus spreading more or contribute to stopping the spread.