The United States will probably pass the 100,000 dead mark of the Covid-19, mentioned Sunday by Donald Trump, as early as June, according to multiple epidemiological models which do not predict a sudden contagion during the summer.
"We are going to lose 75,000, 80,000 or 100,000 people," the US president said on Fox on Sunday, arguing that shutting down the economy had prevented a balance sheet that would otherwise have reached "the minimum" 1 , 5 million American deaths.
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In reality, the estimate is probably low, even without including a second wave in the country which accounts for a third of the coronavirus cases recorded in the world. The White House itself is counting on 100,000 to 240,000 dead. An internal report from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), consulted by the New York Times , even plans to restart in mid-May, with almost a daily doubling of the number of deaths by June 1 , or 3,000 instead of about 1,500 at the moment. The White House said the report had not been adopted by the executive.
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The United States is already at 68,000 dead and since early April has detected around 30,000 new cases every day. Even if contagions did not start up again because of the deconfinement, the mechanics of the epidemic made it inevitable to cross the next big symbolic caps.
"My personal estimate is that we will reach 100,000 dead in early June," said AFP Nicholas Reich, professor of biostatistics at the University of Massachusetts, whose laboratory has merged several large models from other institutions to plot an average trajectory. . According to this average, 90,000 people are expected to die by May 23. “It could happen after or a little before. But we are observing fairly steadily between 5 and 10,000 deaths per week, there is little reason for this to change quickly . ”