Weekly Update (June 30, 2020) on the Cumulative U.S. Death Predictions from COVID-19

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AMHERST, Mass. – Nicholas Reich, director of the UMass Influenza Forecasting Center of Excellence and associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, is available to discuss the updated projections, four weeks out, for number of COVID-19 deaths nationally and by state.

The new forecast for cumulative U.S. deaths by July 25 is 148,000, with a 10% chance of seeing fewer than 141,000 and a 10% chance of seeing more than 156,000. Interactive visualizations also show the breakdown of projected deaths by state.

The COVID-19 Forecast Hub, curated by Reich and his team, represents multiple models from teams of highly respected infectious-disease forecasters from prominent institutions.

Reich says: “Our national-level ensemble forecast combines models from 22 research groups and predicts that as a nation we will see a steady increase in the number of deaths due to COVID-19 over the next month. Our model predicts that we will observe over 5,000 new COVID-19 deaths by July 25, with around 148,000 total deaths in the U.S. forecasted by July 25.

“As expected, COVID-19 mortality is lagging behind the new surge in cases seen in many communities across the country. Given the increases in testing and changing demographics of new cases, there remains some uncertainty about how the recent case surge will translate into increases in severe disease and mortality over the next few weeks. As always, it continues to be vitally important to monitor multiple models, as they each use different approaches to detect changes in how COVID-19 is spreading in the U.S.”

For more information, follow Reich on Twitter @reichlab