Over the past few weeks, it's been fun to see all the debates over death rates, even though this pandemic isn't over yet and it will be almost impossible to calculate a true death rate until after it's finished.
However, a new assertion that has popped up recently, one I hadn't heard of earlier, how the USA was predicted to have 3 million deaths from this virus, but here we are, only 200,000 deaths and isn't it great how well the Trump administration has done to save us from that devastation.
So I decided to find some of those predictions and arrange them in chronological order to see what I could discern from them.
March 18th, 2020, Healthcare Purchasing News published an article: COVID-19 Predicted to infect 81% of the US Population, Cause 2.2 million deaths in US. This warning came from Imperial College London and the study can be read here. It includes a table showing estimated Infection Fatality Rates for different age groups which they claim would result in an overall IFR of 0.9%.
April 21st, 2020 - The Libertarian Cato Institute considered some of the early predictions from those models, mentioning the most sensational one that came from Imperial College London. That was the report that predicted 2.2 million deaths in the USA. The Cato Institute's article went on to comment that:
"A month later that 2.2 million estimate was still being used (without revealing the source) by President Trump and Doctors Fauci and Birx to imply that up to two million lives had been saved by state lockdowns and business closings and/or by federal travel bans."
In retrospect, this seems to be where people on social media are coming up with this notion that since we were supposed to have 2 or 3 million deaths and now we don't, that the Trump administration is doing a great job.
The Cato Institute went on to dismiss this projection.
"The worst‐case Imperial College estimate of 2.2 million deaths if everyone does “nothing” did not simply mean no government lockdowns, as a March 31 White House graph with two curves implied. It meant nobody avoids crowded elevators, or wears face masks, washes their hands more often, or buys gloves or hand sanitizer. Everyone does literally nothing to avoid danger.The Ferguson team knew that was unrealistic, yet their phantasmal 2.2 million estimate depended on it. As they reticently acknowledged, “it is highly likely that there would be significant spontaneous change in population behavior even in the absence of government‐mandated interventions.” An earlier February 20 brief said, “Some social distancing is to be expected, even in the absence of formal control measures.”"
So it would seem that, once again, the White House was using a single projection to support the notion that it had been doing a great job of containing the virus.
May 4th, 2020 - CNN Health put out this article: Coronavirus model projects 134,000 deaths in US, nearly double its last estimate. This model comes from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) at the University of Washington and has been cited by the White House. It also represents a steep increase from around 72,000 deaths predicted only the previous week. Relaxed social distancing and increased mobility were given as reasons for the sharp increase. At the time, only 68,000 deaths had been recorded as being caused by the virus.
May 18th, 2020 - CNN Health has another article that reports that the IHME has revised its death toll down a bit, now to 143.360, in this article: US Coronavirus death toll passes 90,000 but influential model lowers its prediction. They attributed the difference to people being more careful and wearing masks.
August 7th, 2020 - People carried an article called: US Coronavirus deaths predicted to hit 300,000 by December as current cases near 5 million. At the time, there were around 160,000 deaths. The IMHE model is now predicting as many as 400,000 deaths by year end IF states keep relaxing mandates to control the spread of the virus. The article also notes that every individual who wears a mask is reducing transmission by 40%. Relaxing these practices too soon results in a further increase. At least 39 states had some form of mandate to wear masks, with Kentucky governor quoted as commenting that masks were effective. The CDC came out recommending against masks with vents.
September 3rd, 2020 - A report from IMHE itself suggested that 770,000 lives could be saved if people and governments took precautions:
"In the first global projections of the COVID-19 pandemic by nation, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is predicting nearly 770,000 lives worldwide could be saved between now and January 1 through proven measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing."
The same article also mentioned "herd immunity" with the following statement:
"... cautioned against pursuing the so-called “herd immunity” strategy, which occurs when a large proportion of a community becomes immune to the virus through infection and recovery. The “worse-case” scenario in these projections reflects a situation where leaders allow transmission to run through their population, resulting in significant loss of life.
“This first global forecast represents an opportunity to underscore the problem with herd immunity, which, essentially, ignores science and ethics, and allows millions of avoidable deaths,” Murray said. “It is, quite simply, reprehensible.” "
September 4th, 2020 - NBC News carried a report that looked both backwards and forwards. It noted that early predictions were for as many as 3 million deaths - worldwide - if governments don't tighten up social distancing requirements and "...people aren't vigilant about wearing masks...." The article said that deaths could be as many as 620,000 deaths in the USA with 4 million worldwide. At the time of this report, there were 188,000 deaths in the USA.
So, what to make of all this....
There was indeed ONE projection that mentioned over 2 million deaths in the USA from this pandemic. Interestingly, it was from a single model that had previously also made rather fantastic projections about earlier disease outbreaks (this is mentioned in the Cato Institute's article, above). The worst-case assumption of this model seemed to be that absolutely nothing would be done to counter the virus - not just no government actions, but no actions on the part of individuals either. For obvious political reasons, this is the one that the White House latched on to rather early, followed, more recently, by some of the President's supporters
Most of the others were much more cautious and probably underestimated the number of deaths. Recent projections are for around 400,000 deaths in the USA by the end of the 2020. Of course, the virus won't have finished with us by then, so we should draw little solace from that number. Any possible vaccine is still months away.
[Final Edit] - It's September 25th, and Trump is still making the claim that the USA managed to prevent up to 3 million deaths, according to a story from the BBC dated September 23rd. I guess once you find a good story, it's best to stick with it, even if it's complete nonsense.
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