IHME for California Considers that Almost Half of California Could Be Vaccinated by May 1.
However, their Current Projection including vaccinations is that there will still be 84% more deaths than at present by May 1. Today, their model has 38,467 deaths, and by May 1 projects 70,654 deaths, giving 32,187 more deaths by then. That is an 84% increase. With 95% or Universal Masking starting now, they project 65,807 deaths by May 1, saving 4,847 lives, or 15% of those still to occur. Current California masking is at a relatively high 80%. In their model, 10,800 lives are saved by vaccinations.
The IHME estimates that 15% of Californians have already been infected. By May 1, they estimated that 18 million may be vaccinated, being 45% of California’s 40 million people. That means that 38% will be immune. The Facebook-MIT survey shows that 56% of California adults will accept the vaccine, and 24% are unsure, which they usually add up to 80% being acceptable, leaving 20% rejecting the vaccine. While 15% are taken to having been infected now, by May 1, they estimate 25-30% infected.
In California, Covid-19 is now weekly the leading cause of death, at almost 4,000. It is greater than the sum of the next nine causes of death, which add up to around 3,000 a week.
Daily deaths are modeled at 576 now, and will peak on February 11 at 599 a day. These will reduce to: 430 at March 1; 201 at April 1; and 76 at May 1.
Confirmed infections per day are at about 43,500. But the model estimates all infections per day at 64,531, giving a ratio of all to confirmed of 1.5, or 2/3 being confirmed. A graph, however, shows an estimate of 50% being confirmed.
All infections per day in the model peaked on January 18 at 69,585. The future infections per day are: 63,258 on February 1; 49,301 on March 1; 24,080 on April 1; and 7,772 on May 1.
In Hospitalizations, all beds available above normal are 26,654, while those needed today almost meet that at 25,952. The peak need will be on February 6 at 26,806.
ICU beds available above normal are 1,994, while today, 6,353 are needed, which is 24% of beds needed. The peak is close to that on February 6 at 6,565. Then, it rapidly falls to 4,800 on March 1, and 2,341 on April 1. For the four month period, November 30 to April 5, the available number of ICU beds are exceeded.
Today, there are 3,346 ventilators in use, about half of ICU beds, which will peak on February 6 at 3,455. These will fall to: 2,507 on March 1; 1,185 on April 1; and 449 on May 1.
The new and more transmissible Covid-19 variants have not been included in the IHME projections, probably because everything about them is uncertain. The production chain of vaccinations is also still uncertain. Yet, the number of lives savable by voluntary 95% masking are about half of those that can be saved by vaccinations. The 18 million projected California vaccinations is 11.5% of the 157 million projected US vaccinations, about the same percentage of the California population to the US population of 12%. This rate of shots is about triple President Biden’s minimum goal.
