Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

US coronavirus deaths projection doubles - predicting more than 134,000 fatalities

Figures spike as states ‘reopen’ during crisis without firm plan to curb infections

New York

Tuesday 05 May 2020 00:39 BST

✕

Coronavirus in numbers

More than twice as many people in the US may die of coronavirus, according to a new model that is frequently used by the White House, as health officials revise projections amid fears recently relaxed quarantine measures and expired stay-at-home orders could extend the epidemic in many states through the summer.

The University of Washington‘s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projects 134,475 US deaths, with a range of 95,092 to 242,890, up to early August, based on a report released on 4 May.

Its report follows a similar projection from federal officials, first obtained by The New York Times, showing a daily death toll increase from Covid-19 to as many as 3,000 per day by 1 June.

The White House has disputed the findings, claiming that the report has not been vetted by the coronavirus task force and is “not reflective of any of the modelling done by the task force or data that the task force has analysed”.

But the sharp rise in the projected death toll in both reports reflects what health officials have feared as the country looks to “reopen” local economies in the middle of the public health crisis.

IHME attributes the doublings of its numbers to the ”rising mobility in most US states as well as the easing of social distancing measures” within the next few weeks.

“Growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus,” the university said. “Increases in testing and contact tracing, along with warming seasonal temperatures – factors that could help slow transmission – do not offset rising mobility, thereby fuelling a significant increase in projected deaths.”

IHME director Christopher Murray said that the “evolution of the epidemic” relies on the balance within each state of its social distancing efforts along with warming weather, testing rates and contact tracing efforts.

“We expect that the epidemic in many states will now extend through the summer,” he said.

In March, the university’s model initially estimated fewer than 161,000 total deaths in the US. That figure was revised in early April to more than 60,000, with a range as high as 126,000.

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Show all 13

1/13Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Cheryll Mack, 46, a registered nurse in the emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The Covid-19 spread has affected a lot of livelihood, a lot of people's lives. It has created a crisis, death in general. So I would like to ask not one single person, but all people worldwide, to converge and join the platform that this is something that nobody can fight individually," said Mack.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Dr Laura Bontempo, 50, an emergency medicine doctor wears her personal protective equipment she uses when she sees patients, while posing for a photograph after a nine-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moments have actually been separating families from patients, there is a no-visitor policy now and taking people away from their loved ones is very challenging," Bontempo said. "I'm used to treating sick patients. I treat sick patients all the time. It's very different knowing that the patient you are treating, is actually a risk to you as well. That's the main difference here. No one who works in hospitals is afraid of treating sick people. Just want to keep staff safe and the patients safe at the same time."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Ernest Capadngan, 29, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing Covid patients die helpless and without their family members beside them," Capadngan said.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Martine Bell, 41, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a six-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The hardest thing in all of this, has been taking care of fellow healthcare providers. It really hits home and it's really scary when you see someone that could be you coming in and now you're taking care of them. It's also hitting home that once healthcare providers start getting sick, who is going to be taking care of the public," Bell said. "It's very stressful, everyone is on edge. We don't know who's coming in next, or how sick they're going to be, or if we are going to get a whole bunch of people or if we're not going to get no one. It's a really stressful and just a completely unusual time for all of us."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Kaitlyn Martiniano, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital. "We have a lot of patients and they are pretty sick right now but we have not yet been hit as hard as New York or Seattle, so I feel like we are very lucky with that so far. Every day you have to just be optimistic." Said Martiniano. "I think the reason that we are not being hit as hard right now is because so many things are closed, and because so many people are staying at home."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Tracey Wilson, 53, a nurse practitioner in an intensive care unit (ICU), poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn't come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him," Wilson said. "There is a lot of unknowns and with that unknown is a lot of anxiety and stress that we're not used to dealing with."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I think the hardest moment has been the fear that lives within all of us. There is a lot of unknown right now. We fear what's going to happen tomorrow, how the emergency department will look next week when we come in. We have fears about our own colleagues, whether they will fall ill. We also fear that we could be asymptomatic carriers and bring this virus home to our families and our loved ones. There has been a lot of fear over our supplies and whether we'll run out. And then obviously there is the fear that we will see patients and not be able to do everything we normally can to help save patients' lives," Sheehan said.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Kimberly Bowers, 44, a nurse practitioner in an ICU, poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was a young woman who died and her family wasn't able to be here with her," Bowers said. "I think right now, it's just frustrating and scary just not knowing what comes next."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Tiffany Fare, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a Covid patient, say goodbye over an iPad, rooms away. That was a tough one, I can't imagine how hard it would be to be saying goodbye, you can't see your loved one and then they're gone," Fare said. "My team has been really great to me. We've worked really well together and we've really come together in this crisis. We don't really know each other, we all come from different units within the same hospital, so for us to come together and work so well as a team, it's been a journey but I think that's what is giving me hope."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Dr Kyle Fischer, 35, an emergency medicine doctor, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where he works. "Since it's a new virus, we don't have any experience with it. For most diseases I am used to seeing it and taking care of it and this, I don't have any starting place. I know what I'm hearing from New York, I've read all of the papers it seems like, but no one knows what the correct answers are, so there's a huge amount of uncertainty and people are really, really sick. So it's hard to second guess whether or not you are doing the right thing when you think you are but you never quite know," said Fischer.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Julia Trainor, 23, a registered nurse at a surgical ICU, poses for a photograph after a 14-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was having to put a breathing tube in my patient who could no longer breathe for herself and after the breathing tube went in, we called her family and the husband, of course, couldn't visit her because of visitor restrictions at the hospital. So I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear, as he told her that he loved her so much and then I had to wipe away her tears as she was crying," said Trainor. "I'm used to seeing very sick patients and I'm used to patients dying but nothing quite like this. In the flip of a switch, without the support, they're completely isolated. They're very sick. Some of them recover and some of them don't. But the hardest part, I would think, is them having to go through this feeling like they are alone."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Lisa Mehring, 45, a registered nurse who works in a biocontainment unit with Covid-19 patients, poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works in Maryland. "Seeing these new moms have babies has been the hardest moment along with having do their pumping for the new moms and them not being able to be with their newborn children, it's hard to think of the family that they are missing," Mehring said.

Photos Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Jacqueline Hamil, 30, a registered nurse in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital. "The hardest moment of my shift today, I was in charge, and we had a really sick patient that was in a really, really small room and usually, when we have sick crashing patients, we can have a ton of resources and a ton of staff go in and help with the nurse and the doctors that are taking care of that patient. But due to the patient being ruled out for the coronavirus, we could only have five or six people in the room at a time and putting on all the gowns and gloves and masks and face shields to protect us in case the patient does have coronavirus, it takes a while, so the nurse that was in there, ended up being in the room for you know 6, 7 hours with minimal breaks and it was hard being in charge and knowing that she was stuck in the room and really nothing I could do to help her," Hamil said.

Reuters

More than 68,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19-related illness, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 1.2 million cases of the virus have been identified in the US as of 4 May, accounting for roughly one-third of all global cases.

The latest IHME forecast follows new modelling that ”captures the impact of changes in social distancing mandates, changes in mobility, and the impact of testing and contact tracing” and ”enables predicting a resurgence if and when more social distancing mandates are relaxed”.

Mr Murray said the model “is the basis for the sobering new estimate of US deaths”.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies