# CDC Document Seems to Project Half a Million Deaths From COVID-19 **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [May 4, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136 "2020-05-04T18:46:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/1 "2020-05-04T18:46:33Z")
Who’s to say how accurate this is? Let’s hope it’s not. [CDC Seems to Project Half a Million Deaths From COVID-19 – Mother Jones](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/05/cdc-projects-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/) > [@](#): > > As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750. > The projections, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/2 "2020-05-04T19:01:28Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Who’s to say how accurate this is? Let’s hope it’s not. [CDC Seems to Project Half a Million Deaths From COVID-19 – Mother Jones](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/05/cdc-projects-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/) Why wouldn’t it be accurate? The number of new cases in the US has been fluctuating around 30,000/day for over a month now, with deaths fluctuating around 2000/day. There’s no reason to think those numbers will drop after easing restrictions on social activities, and every reason to think they will rise. An increase of just 50% seems entirely possible, and at that point, it’s just a matter of math. 3000/day for 30 days is 90,000/month. Multiply that by however many months you think it will take Donald Trump to get the message. Protip: we have empirical evidence that it takes more than 3 months\*. \*And counting ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/3 "2020-05-04T20:13:35Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Why wouldn’t it be accurate? The number of new cases in the US has been fluctuating around 30,000/day for over a month now, with deaths fluctuating around 2000/day. There’s no reason to think those numbers will drop after easing restrictions on social activities, and every reason to think they will rise. An increase of just 50% seems entirely possible, and at that point, it’s just a matter of math. 3000/day for 30 days is 90,000/month. Multiply that by however many months you think it will take Donald Trump to get the message. > > Protip: we have empirical evidence that it takes more than 3 months\*. > > \*And counting It probably is accurate, I’m just hoping otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/4 "2020-05-04T20:53:18Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Why wouldn’t it be accurate? The models are all built on a very large number of assumptions that are based on the best, but questionable, data available as we try to understand a brand new disease. It might be worth reading through [this](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-comic-strip-tour-of-the-wild-world-of-pandemic-modeling/) from 538 if you have not seen it before. It is a little bit older. Newer data since then will have allowed opportunities to try and improve the quality of assumptions used to drive the models. The issues still linger. It is hard to get accurate results when the inputs to the model are not accurately known. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/5 "2020-05-04T21:42:58Z")
nm. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/6 "2020-05-04T23:55:00Z")
Sounds a lot like the early estimates, before White House got involved, and before we started isolating. With no natural immunity in the population, It’s going to go thru most of us sooner or later. At 200000 new cases a day, that’ll take 4 years. Could go faster, now that guvs are letting their states run free. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/7 "2020-05-05T12:25:51Z")
My fear, my suspicion is that the situation will hold for a few weeks and that orders to reopen may look promising - before getting slammed with a horrible flu/covid combination in the fall. Unless we get a vaccine and really ramp up contact tracing, Fall 2020 is going to be a nightmare - even worse with an election. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/8 "2020-05-05T14:04:30Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > My fear, my suspicion is that the situation will hold for a few weeks and that orders to reopen may look promising - before getting slammed with a horrible flu/covid combination in the fall. > > Unless we get a vaccine and really ramp up contact tracing, Fall 2020 is going to be a nightmare - even worse with an election. You hit all the bells in the COVID-19 pinball game! The warmer weather has everyone frolicking to the beach and to parks. The protesters amass on statehouse steps. Nobody has a mask. It’s hard to yell with a mask on! After all, God gave you a voice and lungs (and lots of spit) so you can demand your “Constitutional right” to use the public beaches. I don’t remember that part of the Constitution… It will be a huge demonstration of the Darwin effect and Statistics for Idiots. The curve which was “flattened” by the original shelter-in-place will be blown to smithereens. And these simple people who do not believe in the pandemic will be crowded in hospital halls, with no breath to demand their “Constitutional right” to a respirator. That’s okay. There won’t be any respirators available, because all the health care workers need them for their own personal use. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/9 "2020-05-05T14:26:00Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > It will be a huge demonstration of the Darwin effect and Statistics for Idiots. The curve which was “flattened” by the original shelter-in-place will be blown to smithereens. And these simple people who do not believe in the pandemic will be crowded in hospital halls, with no breath to demand their “Constitutional right” to a respirator. The problem there is, if this were in fact to happen, you can bet that what their surviving cohorts would conclude from all this would be _that it was never possible to avoid it anyway_ and we should have just let it happen and be over fast without any of these strictures. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/10 "2020-05-05T19:30:25Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > The models are all built on a very large number of assumptions that are based on the best, but questionable, data available as we try to understand a brand new disease. > > It might be worth reading through [this](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-comic-strip-tour-of-the-wild-world-of-pandemic-modeling/) from 538 if you have not seen it before. It is a little bit older. Newer data since then will have allowed opportunities to try and improve the quality of assumptions used to drive the models. The issues still linger. It is hard to get accurate results when the inputs to the model are not accurately known. According to the Times article, the models have under-predicted reported deaths so far, let alone the many unreported deaths we know are out there. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/11 "2020-05-05T21:21:40Z")
No one uses a third order polynomial fit, unless they have a darned good reason, or are trying to fudge the results. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/12 "2020-05-05T21:37:28Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > It will be a huge demonstration of the Darwin effect and Statistics for Idiots. The curve which was “flattened” by the original shelter-in-place will be blown to smithereens. And these simple people who do not believe in the pandemic will be crowded in hospital halls, with no breath to demand their “Constitutional right” to a respirator. > > That’s okay. There won’t be any respirators available, because all the health care workers need them for their own personal use. > ~VOW I predict you are wrong, and that states which reopen earlier than states that do not will do just as well. Can we agree to come back and visit this post in, say, two or three months? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/13 "2020-05-05T21:47:53Z")
500,000 deaths through the course of this disease is not an unreasonable estimate. Simply putting resources into identifying and protecting the vulnerable could help to mitigate these numbers by a huge amount. It appears that roughly 10 times as many patients will be using beds compared to how many died so roughly 5,000,000 beds might be used for at least two weeks over a two year period. If we can successfully insulate those who are vulnerable the load could be greatly reduced. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cdc-document-seems-to-project-half-a-million-deaths-from-covid-19/853136/14 "2020-05-06T00:25:20Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I predict you are wrong, and that states which reopen earlier than states that do not will do just as well. > Can we agree to come back and visit this post in, say, two or three months? We’ll likely see trends long before then. Where was America just “two or three months” ago? Meanwhile, will their “leaders” take personal responsibility for excess deaths in early-opening states? Probably not because [insert excuses and scapegoats here]. Who argues for re-opening? Politicians. Who argues for caution? Immunologists. Who do you trust?