On May 20 I projected about 262,000 US deaths by Thanksgiving.
Two months later it's time to revisit the projection.
Johns Hopkins lists deaths at 144,524 as of right now.
Using New York Times data we're at 144,283, as of yesterday.
The interim daily new deaths low occurred on Jun 21 with 257 in that data set.
From Jun 23 through Jul 23 the United States has added 1.69 million new cases.
The vast majority of those new cases have occurred in CA AZ TX and FL, where we know about 66% of cases have been aged 0-49.
That would imply approximately 1.12 million of the new cases in the last month have been aged 0-49, and approximately 575,000 have been aged 50+.
Using California data as a proxy, we know 7% of coronavirus deaths there have been 0-49, and cases 0-49 have been 69% of total cases.
That means the case fatality rate among the 0-49 in CA has been just 0.19% (562/293,675).
The situation for those 50+ is far more grave.
93% of coronavirus deaths in California have been aged 50+, and cases 50+ have been just 31% of total cases, which means the case fatality rate among the 50+ has been 5.66% (7,465/131,941).
Applying those CFRs to the new case population Jun 23 -- Jul 23 we project 2,119 new deaths aged 0-49 and 32,526 new deaths aged 50+, probably in the next 8 weeks.
That puts us, at minimum, at 179,000 total coronavirus deaths before the end of September.
Add as many again another two months after that, which is by no means certain, of course, but not unthinkable, and you're at approximately 214,000 deaths by Thanksgiving. Clearly not as bad as 262,000 but still bad enough. A bad flu season in America, remember, was 80,000 flu deaths in 2017-18. Normal is about 34,000. We are way past the flu comparisons, and those who were making them have shut up about it. They should be reminded of their ignorance and stupidity, which misled many.
The future of this all depends on case growth, and whether the infection profile changes back from younger to older. It's always been about stopping the spread because spread inevitably leads to deaths.
Case growth continues to trend up robustly in California as of today, but appears to have rolled over in Arizona, Texas and Florida, flattening the curve for the United States overall. But even with flattening that means we're still feeding the beast.
Stay tuned.
