IHME Global Covid Deaths Modeled at More Than Twice that which are Reported

IHME Global Covid Deaths Modeled at More Than Twice that which are Reported 

The bad news is that the IHME model of total Covid deaths, as of April 1, 2023 of 18.6 million, will be more than twice that which will have been reported.  The good news is that total Covid deaths in the first quarter of 2023 will be only 2/3 of a million, or a 3.7% increase over those which have already occurred by the start of 2023.  The other good news is that the quarterly deaths, without China, are roughly only a tenth of that from the previous year.

As of the projection for January 1, 2023, there were 17,910,000 total Global Covid deaths, and a projected 18,572,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2023 on April 1, or 662,000 more deaths, which is a 3.7% growth over January 1.  The modeled Reported Global Covid deaths by April 1 is 7,730,000, or only 43% of the total Global Covid deaths.  The projected first quarter deaths from China in the previous article are 281,351, which are 42.5% of the Global first quarter of 2023 total.  Without China, the new quarter deaths would be 381,000.

Current Global masking is only at 24%, and if that were to be increased soon to 80%, the total Global Covid deaths by April 1 would be reduced to 18,341,000, or only 231,000 deaths in the first quarter.  Out of the 662,000 deaths to occur with current masking, it is just 35% or a third of them.

Daily total Global Covid deaths on January 1, 2023 are modeled at 5,500 a day, which will increase to 8,900 a day by April 1, a 62% rise.  With 80% masking, 2,900 deaths a day could be saved on April 1, or 33%.

Global hospital use from Covid cases are modeled at 315,000 on January 1, with 49,000 of those in the ICUs, or 15.5%.  On April 1, these numbers are about the same, at 296,000 and 45,000, with ICUs at 15.2%.

Total Daily Global Covid infections will peak at around 21 million per day in late January, and drop to 17 million per day by April 1.  With 80% masking, infections will reduce to about 10 million per day in January, and rise to 17 million a day by April 1.  Reported new cases will be at only about a half million a day.

The Global infection fatality rate is less than 0.2% as of mid December modeling.  There are new variants in China and in the Northeastern US, but their fatality is not yet known.  The Global rates are partly driven by China, where 80% are susceptible to infection.  There is a low rate of receiving booster shots.  As of December 12, 2022, 77% of the Global population is modeled as infected at least once.  The infection detected rate is only 4%.  64% are fully (twice) vaccinated with the original vaccines, which will rise to 65% by April 1.  

The 77% infection rate of an 8 billion population would give 6,160 million infected.  With 17.9 million Covid deaths on January 1, that would give a 0.0029 historical global fatality rate or 0.29% or 3 out of a 1,000 including before vaccines and with deadlier strains than the Omicron ones.

The IHME model assumes that 80% of the fully vaccinated will get booster shots after 6 months of their original vaccination, and of the first boosted, 80% will get another boost after 6 months.  They also assume that in high income countries, 80% will receive antivirals when needed.

Global Reported and Cumulative Covid deaths per hundred thousand for Countries and states or provinces are shown in the two Global maps below.

We see that the Southern US states, middle South America, Southern African states, Eastern Europe, and Russia have suffered the highest fatality rates.

Percent population of Countries or States and Provinces which are fully (twice) vaccinated is shown below.

We see that African countries are poorly vaccinated, and Ukraine, Romania, the “stans” and Russia are only about half vaccinated.

The Global deaths peak on a quarterly basis, so we include a table of the IHME model total and quarterly deaths, starting in the first quarter of 2021 and ending on the projected first quarter of 2023.  Deaths are in millions.

Without China, the projected quarter of 0.662 would be 0.381, showing a fairly constant evolution of the rest of the world.  This shows that the rest of the world has essentially reduced its vulnerability and moved to less deadly viral strains roughly by a factor of 10 in the last year over the previous year.