Energy Blog

One Million Global Deaths will Increase to 2.5 Million by Next Year

The number of Global Deaths is almost at a Million, at 0.988 million today.  The IHME projection is for 2.518 million by January 1, or 2 and a 1/2 million by New Years, which is a global holiday.  Subtracting the current million lives lost, that will be another 1.5 million lives lost.

The current world masking is at 58%.  If we adopted masking at 95% that could be reduced to 1.814 million, saving 0.704 million or 704,000 lives.  That is 3 and a half times as many lives as the US has lost so far.

The estimated number of global infections is 1,965 thousand or almost 2 million, while confirmed infections are 250 thousand, giving a ratio of 7.86.  Graphically, the IHME shows that only 10% of global infections are detected, so the ratio is 10.  So we have two sources within the IHME, but they are very close numbers.

There are 32.7 million global cases so far.  Of course, over the year that the cases occurred, the ratio was different, but since I am naive, I would say that there are at least 10 x 33 million = 330 million global cases.  Out of the the world population of 7,800 million, this says that 4.2% of the world population has been infected.

On January 1, global daily deaths are projected to be 33,272 per day.  With 95% masking, this can be reduced to almost half, at 17,456 deaths per day.  The exact ratio is a reduction to 52.5%.  In looking at other countries, even an increase of masking to 80% will prevent most of the extra deaths. 

If typical infected are infectious for 14 days, and 2 million are infected each day, then 28 million people are going around infectious in the world.  Out of the 7,800 million world population, this is one out of every 280 people, or roughly, one out of 300.  

Recall, that the result for the US in the last article was 1 out of 200 are infectious.  I also did this for the IHME model for Europe and Central Asia which also includes Russia, and got the result of 1 out of every 400 is infectious on any given day.

If worldwide herd immunity occurred at 60%, the IHME says that there will be 15.7 million deaths.  If herd immunity occurs at 50%, there would be 13.1 million deaths.  And if herd immunity occurs at 40%, there would be 10.4 million deaths.

As I finish this, I am watching the White House nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, where the White House personnel and guests, including Chris Christy, and HHS Secretary Alex Azar weren’t masked, nor were the closely packed people waiting in line and closely seated for hours for Trump’s upcoming rally in Middletown Pennsylvania.

Since this whole series of articles is on Health Care, I cannot exclude pointing out that Justice Barrett will vote against the Affordable Care Act, removing complete health care from 23 million Americans, and subjecting 103 million Americans to losing health care for pre-existing conditions.  This could also include having caught the Coronavirus.

IHME Projects US Cases Are Actually Triple Those Measured.  US now at 7 million confirmed cases.  96,000 Lives Savable by Masking by January 1.

The Sept. 24 IHME projections are out, and are not much changed from last weeks.  However, we pursue further the actual number of Americans who have been infected, and make a crude and naive estimate of the number who may be infectious at the present time, and what that means to you.  Again, I am not an epidemiologist, so take these estimates with a grain of viral load.

First we start with the projections.  The number of US deaths recorded from the Coronavirus is currently 203,147.  The IHME projection for US deaths reached on January 1 is at 371,509, down slightly from a projected 378,000 last week, and 415,000 the week before.  Many of these occur in a holidays surge in the last weeks of December, based on what happened during the Southern Hemispheres winter.  This is due to in-person schools, cold weather forcing people indoors, the seasonal flu, and for us, students returning for the holidays and holiday celebrations.

The US is currently at only 48% masking.  The IHME estimate for 95% masking starting immediately would only result in an estimated total deaths of 275,062 by January 1, thus saving 96,447 American lives.  Since we are at at 203,147 current deaths, that would give 71,915 more deaths by January 1, instead of 168,362, with which to celebrate the New Year.  The almost 72,000 out of almost 170,000, which cuts down deaths to 43% of those without extra masking.  Comparison with other countries shows that even 80% masking gets rid of most of the extra deaths.  While masking reduces the risk of infection to the wearer to 1/3, social distancing reduces it to 1/10.  Outdoor cuts the rate down to 1/18 of that indoors.

Daily deaths on January 1 are currently projected at 3,052, but with 95% masking will be reduced to 1,185 deaths per day.  That is a reduction to 38.8% or about 40% to those with just current 48% masking.  Current deaths fluctuate around 1,000 per day.

Now we get into my naive use of the data.  The IHME estimated infections for Sept. 24 is 126,838.  Recent testing data of confirmed cases are around 40,000 per day for the US.  That means that the ratio of new cases to confirmed and counted ones is about 3.2 to 1.  Here is an even more naive assumption:  people who get infected, are infectious for 14 days.  They are actually maximally infective during their earliest days.  So if you have 40,000 x 3.2 = 127,000 new cases a day, times 14 days, gives 1.8 million infectious Americans on any given day.  With our 330 million population, that is one out of 180, or lets say, 1 out of 200 Americans is infectious on any given day.  When daily deaths triple by January 1, this will be 1 out of every 70 Americans.

Consequently, when you go to a political rally with say 5,000 unmasked, crowded, and yelling people, likely 25 infectious people will be there with you.  But wait, those surrounding you believe that the whole Coronavirus is a hoax, and have been acting in accord with that, exposing themselves every day without precautions, so the real number of infectious people could be many times that.

The state with the largest population (40 million) and almost tied with New York for projected Coronavirus deaths is California.  Currently we have 15,415 deaths from the Coronavirus.  The IHME January 1 projected deaths are 43,211, although this can be reduced to 28,073 by 95% masking, saving 15,133 lives.  That is almost as many as we have already lost!  Current masking in California is at 57%.  Without increased masking, we will lose 27,796 more, which can be reduced to 12,658 lives lost, a reduction to 45.5% of losses.

Now we stick our neck out again to note that on Sept. 24, there were an estimated 13,946 new infections, yet only about 4,000 are being confirmed a day in California.  That means that there are 3.5 times the number of actual cases as those confirmed.

Multiplying the 14,000 new infections a day times 14 days of infectiousness gives about 200,000 infectious Californians on any given day.  Out of 40 million Californians, that is 1/200 of the people you meet here are infectious.  This is the same number as for the US as a whole, and might in fact be built into the model.

We now estimate the fatality rate for the US from the model.  There are 200,000 US deaths out of 7 million confirmed cases giving an “apparent” rate of 2.9%.  Applying the US factor of 3.2 to give the real fatality rate gives 2.9%/3.2 = 0.90%, or slightly less than 1%.

We note that the IHME shows graphically the US detection rate at 23%, who’s reciprocal is 4.35, which would give the real fatality rate of 2.9%/4.35 = 0.67%.  We have used this in previous articles, but decided to try the other approach today.  Still, they are not that far apart, but we would of course prefer that the lower one be true.

Update:  Sept. 26.  Using the 4.35 factor of total cases over detected time 7 million detected cases give 30.4 million infected Americans.  Dividing by the US population of 330 million gives 9.22% of Americans infected.  Serology tests reported yesterday gave near 9% positivity or infection rate for the US, in good agreement with the IHME figures.

So what IHME essentially does is triple the probability of infection, but cut the fatality rate down to a third of the apparent rate.

As Global Deaths Approach a Million, 2.7 Million Deaths are Projected for January 1.

Global deaths today are 958,000, or 96% of a million.  The IHME Sept. 18 projections for January 1 are 2.667 million deaths.  With 95% mask wearing, that can be reduced by 0.730 million to 1.937 million.

Compared to present deaths of 0.958 million, there will be 1.709 million more deaths by January 1.  With 95% masking, that will be reduced to 0.979 million more.  That is 57.3% of those without more masking, or a saving of 43% of the lives to be lost.

Global deaths per day will reach 33,625 on January 1 with present 59% world masking, but that can be reduced to 19,699 a day with 95% masking, a reduction of 41%.

This week’s IHME projection for deaths on January 1 is 111,000 lower than last week’s.  The deaths saved by 95% masking on January 1 has increased to 730,000 this week from 715,000 last week.

We present leading countries in the number of deaths projected by IHME for January 1, the number of deaths expected with masking, the number of lives saved by masking, and the percentage of current masking.

Clearly, it is hard to imagine Japan or S. Korea rapidly accelerating deaths in December with their high masking percentages.  The model might need some revisions here.

In many projections, you can see that present high masking percentages lead to smaller gains with increasing masking to 95%.  It is also clear that even progressing to 80% mask wearing reduces most of the new fatalities.