May 4. The CDC Estimates Double the Death Rate by the End of the Month
The President is backing the opening, and is now willing to sacrifice at least 30,000 more Americans to get it done. The prediction of IHME was 72,000, which won’t be achieved by premature opening, and FEMA and the CDC is now predicting 100,000 deaths. Of Course, the total number of US deaths is already 67,000. The news just announced that the updated IHME or University of Washington Model is now predicting 135,000 deaths by August! This is not on their website yet.
The Vietnam War started in 1955 under President Eisenhower, and lasted through President Kennedy, then President Johnson, then President Nixon, and was finally ended in 1975 by President Gerald Ford. Can imagine the reaction of these Presidents if they were told that the death toll of the war would be doubled, just because people would not stay at home for a few more weeks?
The New York Times received an internal projection of daily deaths until the end of this month. The graph is shown below, from CNN. The blue dots are the actual number of deaths per day, which are currently 1,750 deaths per day. The solid red line is the projection of deaths per day, which reaches 3,000 deaths per day, on the logarithmic vertical axis. Before we criticize the curve, we note that the Administration says that this has not been vetted by the White House Coronavirus Task Force. We also update that this is a Johns Hopkins model, and they say that they were not finished yet.
With the difference of 1,250 deaths a day, how long does it take to raise the projected deaths from the present 67,000 to 100,000, or by 33,000? Answer, 26.4 days. But this is just until the end of May, on June 1, on an exponentially increasing curve!!! This means that total deaths by the time it finally ends will be …?
My criticism of the leaked model is that the red line fit lingers at about 500 deaths per day, while the data is actually at 1,750 per day. Any decent model would be adjusted every day to agree with the actual data. What is wrong with FEMA and the CDC that they are even circulating this? To adjust it, the red curve has to be multiplied by a factor of 3.5! Does this mean to expect not 3,000 deaths per day by the end of the month, but 10,000? Inquiring minds want to know. Another example of the fog of Trump’s Coronavirus War. The model above also estimates that the present 25,000 new cases a day will leap to 200,000 new infections a day by June 1.
Dr. Ali Mokdad of the IHME model said that they are now including four new effects:
1 The heat effect reduces the Coronavirus by 2% for every degree centigrade. Since Southern California has warmed from say 65 degrees F to 80 degrees F, or 15 degrees F, or 8 degrees C, leading to a 16% reduction, or Reduction by a sixth.
2. Increased testing bringing the numbers down.
3. Density of cities.
4. Mobility increasing mortality, and people wearing masks now.
Of the hundred or so possible vaccines, the Trump Administration has already chosen 14 and only 14 to back. What panel of national and international experts made this decision? (None?). What were their criteria? Where is their report? Especially since the recent head of the vaccine agency was just fired. How much weight was given to cronyism and America First, and just plain promised speed and nothing else, and Trump’s innate genius? Were all possible approaches and types of vaccine included? And why the rush, without waiting at least for first or second stage trials? We will never know.
