In the most likely scenario, Lessler says, the U.S. reaches only 70% vaccination among eligible Americans, and the delta variant is 60% more transmissible.
In that scenario, at the peak in mid-October, there would be around 60,000 cases and around 850 deaths each day, Lessler says.
Each scenario also includes a range of how bad things could get — the very worst end of the range for the most likely scenario shows about 240,000 people getting infected and 4,000 people dying each day at the October peak, which would be almost as bad as last winter.
I mean, aren’t we already at 70k new cases a day (from a low of about 10k new cases a day in June) so we’ve already surpassed what they felt would be the October peak in the most likely scenario?
is it going to keep getting worse for three more months until the delta variant runs out of victims?
I think that, as was the case last year, the key will be how well we can manage to get the situation under control before schools reopen. In the Southern states, which is lagging in terms of vaccination rates, schools often open up in mid to late August, which is just 2-3 weeks away now. COVID has a lot of the adult population left to burn through, and I’m guessing that there will be a lot of people under the age of 18 that the virus can infect. Many of the state officials have vehemently fought against masking, against online schooling, and even offered tepid support for vaccinations. What could go wrong?
Based on recent experience in India and the UK I would say not that long. Those recent peaks seemed to take a little less than 2 months before declining.
In India’s case, the virus ravaged the population; they’ve also stepped up vaccination efforts. The UK managed to bring their case count back down, but keep in mind that their Freedom Day (or whatever it’s called) was just last week, so we could see those case numbers rise again. Waves are the result of our behavior - our vigilance or lack of it.
delta cases have been growing for about a month. also something like 50-60% of adults are fully vaccinated.
But that’s still a lot of kids and unvaccinated adults for the virus to burn through. that’s still 200 million vulnerable people (assuming delta reinfects people who’ve already had covid).
That’s still not materially different than the UK. I don’t know if delta reinfects any more than any other version of Covid. I haven’t seen anything to that, and would like to keep idle speculation out of the thread.
My projection is based on two recent countries. Every country tries mitigation efforts. I expect the USA will do the same. We have recent results, that’s what I am using for my projection.
I think so – since about early May I’ve heard (from an immunologist friend of mine who has worked with a couple major outbreaks) that we can expect a spike (along with preventative measures perhaps being reinstated) around the end of October, and this seems to be following along with that prediction. I have no reason now especially to doubt it.
Any preventive measures (other than some PR speeches) are only going to be done in the Blue states which already have fairly good vaccination rates. They are not going to happen in the Red states which have poor vaccination rates.
I’d be shocked if it took that long for a single peak. We’re surging now and the Delta has been moving through populations very quickly. If it takes until October to peak than the surge will be more like a slow burn.
When Delta started moving through the UK, ~ 55% had a single shot with only ~ 37% of the populace was fully vaccinated. Both vaccination rates and the virus moved like crazy. In the end, the vaccinations seem to have won out to some extent. Cases are dropping rapidly (although they may start rising due to restrictions lifted). More importantly, deaths and hospitalizations have been minimal.
The US is a better position than the UK was back then. However, our vaccinations have leveled off. On the bright side, we have a lot more people who have some natural immunity. Those people may get reinfected but they’ll probably have minor cases.
I predict that Delta will move quickly through the unvaccinated population and infect a smaller percentage of vaccinated people. The peak will probably be September with the deaths peak being smaller than past deaths peaks.
This is assuming vaccine immunity doesn’t wane (I’m not yet convinced by the one Israeli study) and we don’t have another worse variant.
7 day average is currently around 54,000/day and rising fairly rapidly. I think the US will reach 70K/day average within a week.
Their estimate of 70% of the population immunized is a pipe dream. The US might, just might get more than 50% fully immunized by the end of the summer. Current rate is 48.5%
I think you’re looking at a middle road - certainly their “most likely” scenario is going to be surpassed well before October. I’d guess the peak will be around 100,000 - 120,000 cases/day and around 1000 - 1200 deaths/day.
And unless it’s changed since 2019, there are already US schools in some places (but not on either coast) that are open. Some schools open the third week of July for some reason.
Those are generally districts that do year round school. They have modest sized breaks throughout the year, but not the big summer break. Some districts in Indiana do this.
I can’t find it now but there was an article where the previous head of the CDC said Delta will peak in october with about 200,000 cases a day.
So why would it take an additional 3 months for delta to peak? Supposedly the true infection rate is 3x the official rate, so if 200k are being diagnosed in october, that is 600k actual infections a day, which is 18 million a month. With delta spreading so fast why would it take until october to reach its peak? In the US we’ve gone from about 10k infections a day in mid June, to about 60k a day in late July. Shouldn’t we be at the peak in a month or two? Delta spreads faster, would it really take 3 months to peak?
I agree. I actually hope it peaks soon and starts to go down. If the peak is not going to happen until October, it’s going to be quite large, given the current rate of increase.
I think this is the model the article was referring to. It’s 200,000 cases per week, not day.
If you look at scenario B and D, the peaks are in late September (although I think Delta is moving faster than that). If you click on “all” instead of “ensemble”, you can see the different models. I think we’re following the USC- model (blue). If we’re lucky like the UK, we’ll stop at half the levels of our January surge. For some places (like my Bexar County, TX), we’ll reach the peak at the end of Aug/beginning of Sept. Just my uninformed opinion. LOL.
The US current 7 day average is about 65,000 per day. If the cases level off without going up any more in the next while (unlikely in the extreme), this would equate to 455,000 cases per week. This is the current state - By September we’ll either be past the peak on the downward slope, or (God forbid) be still going up and the cases will indeed look like 200,000/day, much like the first 2 weeks in January this year.
Yes, you’re right, if we stop at 125,000 cases/day (half the January surge), we’ll be lucky.
That’s about what the ensemble for scenario B of the model is predicting. However, the USC model is predicting 1.1 million cases per week at a peak sometime in Sept. I think that’s what we’re looking at IF our surge looks like the UK’s surge. Otherwise, it keeps going to Oct and we’re looking at numbers like we had in January.
huh?