Sobering new numbers

An influential coronavirus model often cited by the White House has revised projections to nearly 135,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States. The researchers said they raised their estimates because of relaxed social distancing and increased mobility. 

The model, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, previously predicted 72,433 deaths as of Monday morning,  when the official count was at 68,000 deaths. These models have some harrowing numbers that should remind us of the truth about this virus. We have done many things to try and mitigate the risks, but that doesn’t mean they go away completely. The stay-at-home orders have had an impact. But seemingly what they've done is they've brought things down to a lower level of daily infections. But they haven’t been enough to end things.

The efforts mostly were able to slow down the infection rate. You should understand that was hugely important. We had to reduce the stress on the hospital system. So those measures were needed. More people would have died if hospitals were overwhelmed any more than they already are.

So if states start to re-open, more people will be infected and, sadly, more will be hospitalized and even die.